


In Every Generation

by RamercyGriff



Series: In Every Generation [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Kinda Sorta Crossover, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:46:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23695645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RamercyGriff/pseuds/RamercyGriff
Summary: The characters from Heathers get transplanted into the plot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A mashup of the movie and the musical and the movie and the TV series... but not the TV series.Somehow taking an absurd premise very seriously and not very seriously at all, at the same time.
Series: In Every Generation [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706443
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a joke I told myself. Rewatching the '92 Buffy movie I heard the line "I just want to graduate, go to Europe, marry Christian Slater and die", and resolved that the joke could actually work as a real story.  
> I have no idea how long I intend this to be. At the time of posting I've written like fifteen pages and I'm cutting it into two parts, already significantly longer than anything else I've posted so far. How much work I put into it in the future probably depends on whether or not anyone likes it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few years after graduation, Veronica's not doing too well. And she keeps having these weird dreams.

The dream came again that night.

_A cramped chapel in the Carpathians. Candles fill the ambulatory. Blocky stone cross upon the altar. A man in golden robes lies strewn across the altar steps, blood on his mouth and a Bowie knife stuck in his chest. Not a normal man; his features are animalistic, his skin marble white shot with greying veins. Shining black piteous eyes look up at her. She knows he’s a monster, almost made her one too, but she can’t help whispering “My Love” as she kisses him one last time. Taste the blood on his lips one last time._

_She feels his last heaved sigh. He crumples and his face turns to Heaven. Sunlight streams through the East window, playing across his face; in the golden glow, his seems vital and human once again. No. Don’t be fooled. She grabs the knife, thrusts it in with all her weight, and his body spasms. His eyes seem to roll up in his head. Wracked with sobs, she pulls the knife from his chest and brings it down hard against his throat. The head goes rolling away. Say “hi” to God…_

Veronica Sawyer’s eyelids shot open. Seconds passed before she started breathing normally. She hoisted herself off the couch- Jesus, still in jeans- and shambled off to her room, making minimal efforts not to wake Betty. No chance of getting back to sleep now. Sleep didn’t come to her naturally anymore, just once her body finally blacked out from too much time awake. These weird new dreams hadn’t helped at all.

And what was the deal with those dreams, anyway? Until a few months ago, the most disturbing dream she could remember was the one with Heather Duke’s funeral and the Eskimos and being drowned in an urn of spaghetti. That one had been weird in the way dreams normally were- conversations happening out of order, doors opening into the wrong room, yadda yadda. These were different. In these dreams, she was someone other than herself… but also… not. A princess in India. A plantation slave in Virginia. A Magyar peasant girl, whatever Magyars were. But somehow it was always her. In tonight’s dream, she even swore the not-quite-her kind of _looked_ just like her. And there were always monsters, dressed in black with sharp-fanged, mocking smiles… well, maybe that bit wasn’t too hard to figure out.

“Jesus, Veronica,” she whispered aloud. “Get it together. After everything else, some messed-up dreams aren’t going to kill you.”

Didn’t used to have weird dreams, didn’t used to have sleeping problems, didn’t used to have to see a therapist or take meds, used to have something approaching a future. But stability was for people who weren’t serial killers. Struggling in the darkness, Veronica rummaged through her closet. She was pretty sure she felt her hand brush an old kimono (Kimonos! Monocles! Probably should have realized she was mentally damaged a lot earlier) before she finally felt the familiar material of her old blazer. She hadn’t actually worn it out in years- not much point looking good when you’re trying to hide from the world, and shoulder pads appeared to be on the way out anyway- but it would do for now. Veronica huddled in the corner and spread the jacket over herself as much as she could. No sense getting into bed now. There couldn’t be enough night left to bother about getting comfy.

Not for the first time, she entertained the idea of sneaking into Betty’s room and hopping into her bed, but thought better of it.

 _Duh, wastoid. She’s already putting up with your mopey ass barely making rent._ Shut up, Heather.  
_Wooo! Girl on girl._ Shut up, Ram.

Veronica closed her eyes and hoped the dreams wouldn’t trouble her again. She hadn’t grown that much since senior year, but felt like the jacket wasn’t cutting it as a blanket. Maybe she could go find something longer, in black. Heh. No. It wouldn’t smell right.

***

Another typical day of therapy. She wouldn’t have gone if her parents hadn’t insisted. You fake suicide one time… in the middle of the biggest rash of high school suicide attempts in the school’s history… and then tell them there’s a very good explanation they’re not allowed to know… and everyone loses their minds. Veronica could only imagine how bad things would be if anyone had ever made the connection between her and that smoking crater on the football field. She still remembered that sinking feeling that followed coming home and hearing Mom say they’d been talking with Ms. Fleming.

Dr. Murray must have been Fleming’s cousin or something. They seemed equally unaware that hippies were supposed to be extinct. And they had the same patient talking-to-kids-or-idiots tone that made Veronica want to scream. There’s a kind of compassion that’s basically just condescension, a kind of friendliness that has barbs hidden it, and it was something Veronica could never stomach.

 _Gawd, Veronica. Just trying to cushion the blow for you. Someone’s gotta push you out of the nest, if you wanna fly with eagles._ Shut up, Heather.

At least it was down to once a month. And at least therapy was better than the electric chair. Still, the sessions had gotten so monotonous that Veronica could sense the shape of them without fully tuning in.

Overture: some gentle probing to guarantee she wasn’t planning on pounding some drain cleaner or something (furtive fiddling with sleeves to hide the burn marks), peppered with gentle assurances that whatever it was she was feeling right now, it was alright. A slight detour that somehow led to Dr. Murray talking about that time she dropped acid at a Doobie Brothers concert.

Scherzo: some talk about developing goals, and then the part she most dreaded.

“In past sessions we’ve talked about building a support network among your friends and family. How has that been going?”

_Awesome. Let’s see, Martha, who will never fully trust me again because she thinks I humiliated her in front of all Westerburg High for a joke, but is too lonely to brush me off. Betty Finn, basically been freeloading off her since I dropped out of college and is too nice to say so. Mac, who probably belongs in this chair more than me, and has no idea that I killed her best friend and her boyfriend. Heathe… no, not even as a joke. And a couple voices in my head, just, you know, the ghosts of those I’ve wronged or something, no big thing. Yeah, great collection of friends, everyone I’ve lied to and hurt._

As for more-than-friends… There hadn’t been any of that. A few half-hearted attempts that she’d broken off before they lasted a week, maybe. Spare them the embarrassment of bringing a mentally damaged burnout home to meet Mom. And, well… everything had felt so real and right with J.D. After how things had turned out, how were you ever supposed to trust realness or rightness again? Better to just own up to the fact that life had ended at Westerburg, for her and the rest of the ghosts. 

Of course, Veronica said none of this out loud. The best she could manage was some noncommittal muttering. The shrink didn’t seem fully satisfied, possibly because of an insufficient amount of broken-down crying, but decided not to press matters.

Finale: a quick lecture on taking care of herself. _I’ll get right on that._ And at last it was done. Dignity thoroughly assaulted, façade maintained, prescription renewed, and on that note, off to the drug counter. If it didn’t help any, someone would probably pay for them. Might as well branch out from forging documents, diversify the old portfolio.

***  
“Yeah. Hello? I guess I need a refill.” The figure behind the counter jerked upright, nose escaping the gravity well of the dusty old book it had been trapped in.

“Ah. Yes. Terribly sorry,” he mumbled. The guy spoke deeply and gently, barely above a whisper, like he was used to working in total silence. As his fingers closed on the transparent orange bottle, he suddenly looked her dead in the eye, a strange expression crossing over his face. 

“’s, I see. I-it’s- Miss Sawyer, isn’t it?”

She was caught off guard. “Yes. Good call. Only appointment today?” He didn’t appear to hear her.

“Just one moment.” He took the bottle and busied himself in the back room.

For some reason, something about him caught Veronica’s interest. She leaned across the counter slightly to get a discrete look while he worked. The guy had the slightest trace of a stammer, his clothes were stuffy and outdated, he had big horn-rim glasses on, and although his face was unlined he clearly had to be at least forty. Her first thought was that all those details would have made the butt of some lighthearted mockery from the dear departed Heather Chandler.

But that wasn’t all. Impossibly, there was something about him that was almost familiar. For reasons Veronica didn’t understand, her mind was flashing back to her dreams, the ones with the monsters. Had someone like this guy been in them? Her waking memory didn’t seem to want to cooperate.

 _Barf me out, Veronica. Trading up? Got tired of Kid Carruthers, so you’re graduating to old farts? Classic cry for attention._ Shut _up_ Heather. And it’s Kit, not Kid.

Horn-Rim finally made his way back to the counter, plonking the bottle down in front of her. Next to it, with reverential care, he set a leather-bound filigree-paged book he had apparently grabbed off a stack in the back room. The word VAMPYR was blazoned across the cover. Horn-Rim was looking at her intently, like there was something she supposed to understand.

She didn’t. Struggling for something to say, she settled for, “Well, I can’t actually read Dr. Murray’s writing, but I don’t think that’s part of the prescription.”

“Well.” There it was again, that deep, gentle voice. “I think you might find this volume has special significance for you.”

Veronica wondered if she was being pranked somehow. But instead of asking what the hell he was talking about, she heard herself ask, “Look, do I know you from somewhere?”

“Ah.” Horn-Rim raised his eyes and made some gestures; someone had popped into line behind her. Not fully understanding why, Veronica shuffled off, prescription in hand. She tried to shoot a look at Horn-Rim over her shoulder as she left, but couldn’t meet his gaze. She was in the parking lot before she realized she’d grabbed the book, too.

VAMPYR. Huh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm attempting to ape the writing style of Kim Newman in this one, at least a bit. A consequence of that is that I'm going to be peppering a few obscure references throughout the narrative just for fun. A few I want to highlight:
> 
> -The dream Veronica has in the beginning: (slight spoiler for fairly old movie) This is meant to be the climactic scene from Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula movie. The joke is fairly obvious; Winona Ryder played Mina in that one, and she also played Veronica.  
>  -Dr. Murray: There's a dopey principal in the '92 Buffy movie named Gary Murray. He is a very Miss-Fleming-type character, who thinks he's good at connecting with young folks but clearly isn't. I guess this is some sort of AU version of that character.  
>  -"Kit Carruthers": a reference to the movie "Badlands", in which an impressionable young girl who falls for an edgy guy in a leather jacket, who turns out to be a violent criminal. Familiar much? As an amusing aside, said edgy guy was played by a younger Martin Sheen, whose daughter played Betty Finn in the original Heathers movie.
> 
> An aside: I plan to have Betty Finn play a significant role in this story. Unfortunately for Dunnstock fans, I'm not sure how much room this will leave for Martha in this story. Only time can tell, of course.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something very strange is happening in Sherwood, Ohio.
> 
> (Or I guess in theory it could be happening in a college town that shares a wider metropolitan periphery with Sherwood. I really didn't want to spend too much time on geography, alright? I've never even been to Ohio)

“Like the movie with Tom Cruise?”

“I guess. I looked inside, and it’s just… weird. Look.” Veronica dragged the book across the table and fiddled with the clasps. “It’s in real ye old medieval talk but I can make out some of the handwriting-”

“You’re really good at that,” Mac said, with the uneasily intense tone she sometimes used for complimenting people.

“-and it’s full of this weird- well, like this.” Veronica opened the book to a dog-eared page and read as much aloud as she could decipher. “ _It is obvious that the creatures bring a diverse manner of harms upon the victims, and Dr. Grost has said that these unholy beings are of as many kinds as all the beasts of prey in their_ blah blah blah. And then-“ she flipped ahead- “this part here: _In the campaign against the Saxons in Mercia, the legions came upon the Cult of Dionin, which the general later related to Emperor Carausius-_ ”

“Who’s that?”

“No idea,” Veronica admitted. “History’s not really my subject.”

_Oh, I looked it up, by the way. Those mass suicides in Berlin? Not faked. Would have helped Kurt and Ram for you to know that._

_”Looked it up?” See, this is how I know you’re just a hallucination. Heather Chandler didn’t read. I’m pretty sure her copy of “The Bell Jar” was just hollowed out to hide cocaine or a dildo or something._

_Oh, and the Huns never invaded Rome, either._

_Shut UP, Heather!_

Veronica realized Mac was looking at her funny, and snapped out of it.  
“I don’t know. Probably just written by some priest back in the Stupid Ages or something. The guy just handed it to me, no warning or anything. I swear I recognized him from somewhere, too.”

Big brown eyes blinked, and Mac shrugged with a little “I dunno” noise. It was such a familiar gesture that it was sometimes hard to realize how much she’d changed since Westerburg. Back then, Heather McNamara just been some vapid, pretty, bleach-blond Diet Cokehead. Heather Chandler’s secondary punching bag, smart enough to let Duke take point, often found at the nearest house party pressed between a kitchen counter and a football player, but not much good for anything else.

And now here she was, still pretty and blond, but thinking and talking for herself and pre-law, for God’s sake. Even calling herself something else, showing an independent streak Heather Chandler would definitely not have approved of. And here was the former child prodigy, just a psychological wreck. Jealousy wouldn’t be appropriate, so Veronica quashed it down.

Nobody at Westerburg would have seen it coming. Of course, nobody saw the sleeping pills coming either, so to hell with it. 

Mac tried to stay characteristically chirpy. “So, aside from weird old guys with books, how are things?”

Things were terrible, of course.

“Things are fine. Still, y’know, have a lot to figure out. I can’t believe it, but sometimes I miss school.” She tried to brush it off with a pathetic little laugh but realized with a horrible start that it was partially true.

“Oh, me too,” Mac laughed back, “Sometimes. I was a total screw-up at school, but I miss cheer. And remember how many times we tried to sneak into this place?”

The club had seemed wonderfully taboo back in the day. Getting inside was about sixty percent of the appeal of successfully grabbing the attention of some Remington frat boy. Illicit entry had been a goal of Heather Chandler’s for a brief time.

Once inside, the novelty wore off pretty quickly. With no interest in drinking or seeking out company for the evening, options were usually limited to sitting at a disturbingly sticky table as far away from the band as possible, with an admittedly passable fried onion blossom thing. It was quieter than it should have been on Friday. Fewer people, with less energy. Still, better than sitting out on some park bench.

“Remember Heather tried to flirt her way in here that one time?” Mac smiled, almost wickedly.

“Definitely. Good times.” She did remember; Heather Chandler’s abject failure had been a source of smug satisfaction. Veronica was surprised to realize she was cracking a smile herself now. It didn’t last.

Mac was quiet for a moment. “Things used to be a lot simpler. I mean, back in Westerburg things weren’t always easy, but it had its moments, especially after- you know.”

“What?”

“I just meant that… _you_ were there. For the last little bit of senior year, everyone felt really lost. And afraid. Heather wasn’t always the nicest, but I think having her around made everyone feel a little more… comfortable. That’s how it was for me, at least. And then you got Duke off everyone’s backs and… you were just sort of there for everyone. A lot of us didn’t feel so alone anymore.”

Veronica felt like she’d been sucker punched. Mac was smarter than most people thought, but this still felt like it was coming out of nowhere. She mentally groped for some kind of response.

“Um. Well. Just felt like I had some karma to pay back,” she mumbled, partly hoping Mac wouldn’t hear.

Mac seemed to be struggling with something. Finally she looked Veronica dead in the eye and asked, “Do you ever… think about her? Or Kurt, and Ram?”

Oh, good. Stomach knotting up in anxiety. Ice-cold sweaty sensation on the back of neck. That’s what she needed tonight.

“I guess… sometimes. Sure.”

It didn’t sound convincing to her in the slightest but Mac seemed to be staring intently at nothing, wrapped up in her thoughts.

“I know you and her didn’t always get along. Well, she didn’t really get along with anybody really. But she wasn’t always like that. And thinking about everything she was going through, when nobody even knew about it-“

She wasn’t. I made that all up. Veronica forced herself not to say the words out loud.

“-I just wonder. You helped a lot of us get through so much, maybe if I’d just been… smarter, or. Or stronger. Like you. Maybe I could have helped. I just really miss her.”

Oh, fuck. Veronica realized the muscles in her legs were tensing up and her stomach was churning, but was pretty sure vomiting and running away was not the appropriate reaction in this situation. _Say something say something say something…_ She swallowed.

“And… Kurt. And Ram.”

Mac smiled a sad little smile. “Yeah. They were such dickheads sometimes but believe it or not they had their moments too. I remember I started going out with Kurt like halfway through junior year-“

“Wait. You were seeing Ram then.”

Mac looked confused. “… Yeah.”

 _Don’t say anything._ “Um. Never mind. Go on.”

“Well, like I said. When we started going out he was actually really sweet. Like, my mom’s boyfriend didn’t want me smoking, so he used to sneak up to my room after dark and smuggle me Merits.”

Dear God. That was pretty genteel by Sherwood standards. Maybe she meant a different Kurt.

“And he was really sweet with Kimberly.”

“Who?”

“His little sister.”

“Oh. Right. I think I met her. At the funeral.”

“It’s still hard to think they’re all just… gone.” That sad little smile again, a little forced this time. “Sorry. Guess I’m ruining tonight.”

Now the subject was clearly on coping and not the details of the deaths, Veronica felt the tension leave her. Hoping not to be too obvious, she leaned across the table and gave Mac sort of a half-hug, trying and failing to think of anything to say. The other girl was trying to hide some snuffling.  
You’re lying to her. She trusts you and you’re the one who killed all her friends, and if you hadn’t gotten your shit together you might have killed her too. And now you’re covering your ass by pretending to be there for her. It wasn’t Heather Chandler’s voice this time, just her own thoughts. Veronica’s mind flashed unconsciously to the cigarette lighter burn on her hand.

“Heeey, pretty ladies!” A familiar voice cut through the moment, and both girls broke the hug. At another time, it might have been an unwelcome interruption, but now Veronica was glad for some extra distraction.

In spite of all that had changed since high school, some people seemed stuck in time. Like bugs in amber. Matt and Clyde had been regular fixtures at Westerburg, no less than the jocks or the Heathers or Rodney’s computer geek squad or the smarmy teacher’s pet who ran the food drive. At lunchtime, their usual demesne was in the parking lot, lounging on the hood of someone’s car and blaring what might charitably be called loud music. They had vague ambitions at forming their own metal band, ambitions so far thwarted (possibly by divine intervention, for the good of mankind).

Their sense of fashion hadn’t changed much. Clyde wore his hair too long and his jeans in tatters. Veronica recalled him having exactly two speeds: Completely Spaced Out, and Sharing More Than You Cared To Know About His Favorite Bands. Matt had never been seen out of his black military-style jacket, and Veronica recalled him regarding “starting fires” as an enjoyable pastime. Veronica had had Matt pegged as “most likely to wind up in prison” until a certain dark horse had knocked him out of the running.

At present, both were clearly drunk out of their minds; their movements were decidedly woozy as they leaned their backs against the bar across from their table, displaying what they probably thought were winning smiles. A waitress was unfortunate enough to pass by them. Matt, with his usual charm, threw a handful of change onto her tray; her trajectory stopped dead and a pained look crossed her face.

“Wha’s it look like?” Matt slurred.

“You’re looking at a dog. Just short of splitting a beer.”

Matt rummaged for another quarter. “Make it so.”

“Right. I’m Rhonda and I’ll be your waitress,” she added in dead tones before managing to walk off at apparent light speed.

Veronica and Mac, from Heather Chandler’s tutelage, knew at least fifteen methods of conveying utter contempt in the face of unwelcome attention. They had mastered subtle body language cues to let you know they were ignoring you while also talking about you behind your back. Veronica had an artfully-scripted speech prepared in the case of particularly annoying suitors. Technically speaking, Matt and Clyde were probably inured against the pain of rejection by experience, but there was still a certain immature pleasure to be had at exercising those long-dormant muscles.

“Same old losers,” Veronica murmured, just shy of loud enough to hear.

“Blitzed much?” Mac called out. 

Clyde gave a dopey smile that seemed to allow that he was indeed thrashed.

Matt, a bit bolder than his comrade, spoke up. “Hey, Ronnie. It’s been awhile.”

Veronica tried to give a withering glance, but couldn’t quite suppress a smirk.

“Yeah, I’ve been doing great. Got a job at the garage. Clyde and me, our band’s about to take off. We’re putting together a video. Gonna be totally triumphant. Then we’re bailing this town.”

“Hey, great. You can dream.”

Clyde piped up for the first time. “We’re being insulted, Matt.”

“Ah, so he’s the brains of the outfit.” 

"Hey, man, I'm trying to be nice here. Not out of the goodness of my heart or nothing, it's just I had a crush on Wednesday Adams. You remind me of her is all."

"Coincidence, your last girlfriend looked like Thing."

A nuclear bomb had been dropped. Devoid of comebacks, Clyde crammed hot dog into his mouth.

“That any good? Must be. Didn’t even chew.”

Both guys’ grins widened, with Matt shaking his head. But with drunkenness taking up every available wit, neither had anything else to contribute, and both shambled off embarrassed.

“Ah. Back to the arcade?” 

Mac was giggling. Veronica felt invigorated for the first time in as long as she could remember. _Irony much? I used to be terrified of peaking in high school. Now I get my kicks reliving Westerburg’s greatest hits._

“Battle won. No shots fired.”

“Very.”

***  
There aren’t many sights as sad as two drunk, dejected metalhead wannabes stumbling home in the dead of night.

“Heinous, dude. Demon queen.”

“Total babe, Clyde. I Lone Rangered over her like all senior year. My hand got sore.”

Clyde, ever impassive, feigned as much horror as he could muster. “She’s not even human, dude! And went out with that Dean guy.”

“That freak! I remember him. Spooky-ass guy. I heard he brought a gun to school one time. Total psycho.”

“Well, so were you, man.”

“I was a rebel. Fine line. But I’m telling you, man, this is, like, definitive: Marry McNamara, kill Duke, fuck Sawyer.”

“I thought you were with Jackie.”

“She married Steve, dude.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

Both of them came to a shaky stop by the side of the road, taking seats at a waist-high concrete wall. To their credit, their Odyssey had gotten them further than anyone equipped with basic logic could have predicted. Matt produced a flask of Mezcal from a coat pocket, and it was passed back and forth ritualistically. At length, Matt built up enough of a second wind to resume rhapsodizing.

“I remember she used to charge to forge stuff. That makes me weak in the knees, I’m telling you.”

“Man, you probably said less than twenty words to her the whole time you knew her. I never even heard you talk about her before. Why all this romance novel crap alla sudden?”

“Hey, man, I’m so bombed right now, you’re lucky I don’t start making out with you.”

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t call me in the morning. I gotta piss.”

Clyde stumbled off to find a convenient tree. Matt slid gently off the wall and lay on the tarmac of the road, waiting for the world to stop spinning. He rolled his head back and forth, appreciating the spattering noise coming from his buddy’s direction, and briefly considered falling asleep. Clyde presently rejoined him, wiping a hand against his thigh.

“Clyde?”

“Yeah.”

“Be honest. Is the band gonna work?”

Clyde seemed thoughtful for a moment. “Never know. Maybe our demo tape goes really well, David Lee Roth decides to join up with us.”

“’s what I thought. We gotta get out of this town. Spent so long here, with school and the garage and all. I don’t even know what’s outside Ohio anymore.” Matt felt an impulse and decided to act on it. “You’re a really good friend, dude.”

“I know.”

“Now, this is a touching scene.”

Still dazed, Matt lifted his head off the road. Close by him was Clyde, hunched over the concrete wall. Past that, a tree with a noticeable fresh dark stain. Past that, maybe twenty yards up the road, was some dude Matt had never seen before. Matt’s first thought, which halfway out of his brain, was that this guy couldn’t have possibly snuck up behind them so quietly, but there didn’t seem to be anywhere he could have been hiding either. His second thought was that the liked the guy’s coat. Long. Black. Definitive. Under that, Matt saw the guy had a Lost Boys T-shirt on. His hair was long, dirty blond, and limp, and he’d cultivated a sissy-looking full goatee. There was a look in his eye. A deer come face-to-face with a mountain lion could have identified that look. Matt did not. 

Clyde blinked. “Dude, were you watching me pee?” 

The question went unacknowledged. The interloper sauntered towards them, boots scuffing on the road. “You boys oughtta be careful, walking home this time of night.” 

The guy’s voice was low, raspy, scratchy… but at the same time, Matt realized, it somehow _wasn’t_. That was what was going in through his ears, but somehow the voice reaching his brain was completely different- like an entire chorus of voices, some bassy and profound, some high and sweet. Matt felt a nigh-heretical temptation to renounce his faith in Led Zeppelin. He managed to pull himself off the ground, sluggishly maneuver into a crouch. 

“So who are you supposed to be?” 

Lost Boys came to a stop, maybe a yard away from the two. “Why don’t you boys just call me… Amilyn.” 

“’s a girl’s name,” Clyde put in helpfully. 

“Amilyn” evidently couldn’t ignore that. A flash of definite annoyance crossed his face. 

“I’m new in town.” The chorus of voices wasn’t as pronounced now. “Just out looking for a place to grab a bite.” 

“Taco Bell’s still open,” Clyde chipped in. 

The look of annoyance deepened. “Fine. Fuck this.” Amilyn’s face changed. Brow ridges grew more pronounced, and his eyes glowed sickly yellow. Worm-thick veins bulged out in his forehead. Pale skin darkened to bruise-black. Matt found himself wishing he’d pissed earlier with Clyde. 

Amilyn’s mouth seemed to unhinge wider than it possibly could have, lips drawing back in a snarl. Matt could see pale, leathery gums split apart as needle-sharp teeth split through them. In one frantic motion, he had seized hold of Clyde’s hair, jerked his head in close. Matt was vaguely aware that he should react, but his mind still refused to process what it was seeing as reality. Before he could even blink, the monster had bitten savagely into his friend’s neck, making a sickeningly squelchy noise. 

Matt finally found the presence of mind to retreat, crab-walking backwards but unable to rip his gaze away from what he was seeing. Amilyn pulled away from Clyde’s neck briefly, blood drenching his lower face. 

“ _Assholes,_ that was the signal. I thought we rehearsed this.” 

Vaguely embarrassed-looking shadows stumbled out of the darkness. Oh, shit. Whatever this thing was, it had friends. Or employees, or something. There wasn’t any way out. Matt realized he was going to die here, alone, and probably nobody would ever know. 

Suddenly there was the noise of an engine revving then brakes squealing. Matt had to squint as light blared in his eyes. When his vision had finally adjusted, he saw a grey, geeky looking Citroën parked behind the freaks. The driver’s door was open and he could make out the silhouette of a man standing behind it. The figure had a gloved hand outstretched, something- a cross?- clutched within. 

The monsters all whirled around to look at it with rapt attention. Even more bafflingly, it had most of them cowering in apparent terror. Matt was perplexed; any of them could turn around and make a grab for him, but they reacted to the cross like it was a gun, fixated warily in case it went off in their direction. Even Amilyn, still cradling Clyde- no, Clyde’s body- seemed transfixed, though he was standing his ground, not quavering on his knees like his underlings. 

“Redcoats are coming,” Amilyn sneered. 

The other figure was muttering some kind of litany under his breath. Matt could barely make any of it out at this distance- he thought he heard _”Earl Grey, hot. Victoria Regina. Return all books to their proper places. Please refrain from excessive noise. No food or drink in the library.”_

“Might get a few of us. Can’t get all of us.” 

The weird hymn continued, lower and faster. Amilyn clearly didn’t feel as confident as his sneer indicated. For whatever reason, the chanting seemed to agitate him. He looked like a man struggling vainly not to lose an arm wrestle. But he managed to speak evenly. 

“Standoff. We walk out of here. With ours.” He flipped Clyde’s limp arm upright and made it wave a bit. “You can take the other.” 

The figure at the car door seemed to consider it. Its head inclined to one side, seemingly in agreement. Amilyn and his goons seemed to gradually melt into the shadows. The jaguar speed Matt had seen earlier was gone; they looked sullen and dejected, like children caught in a cookie jar. Matt wasn’t sure how, but he realized they were definitely gone. And Clyde was gone with them. 

He was suddenly aware of cold sweat on his forehead, warm dampness in his pants, and the jackhammer pounding of his heart. But he was alive. His brain decided to celebrate by voiding everything in his stomach. When he was done heaving, he looked up at his apparent savior. He was still clutching the cross in his hand, but letting it rest on the car door now. Matt realized whoever it was, he was wearing thick horn rim glasses. The figure cocked his head again, beckoning Matt over to the car. 

Matt got to his feet shakily, no longer feeling even slightly drunk but still not particularly stable, and stumbled over. 

The man took some time to catch his breath. Then he spoke, in a deep, gentle, British voice. “Possibly not the ideal spot to take a nap.” 

Matt’s stomach was still working through the last little heave-pulsations, and he was pretty sure at least one part of his body was twitching at light speed from leftover adrenaline. 

“Uh… could I get a ride to my place?” 

The figure sighed. “Yes, I suppose so.” He reached down and hit a switch; the passenger door lock popped open. Matt slid into the seat, hoping his face was configured into something close enough to a grateful smile. 

The British guy looked around one more, peering through the horn rims, then he slid warily into the driver’s seat and turned on the starter. 

The ride was quiet for a moment. Then the stranger spoke up, still in that gentle, soft voice. 

“Listen to me, very carefully. Tell nobody what you’ve seen here tonight, or you’ll become a bigger target than you are now. Maintain as low a profile as you can. If you leave your home, do so in daytime. Invite no guests. Any questions?” 

About a million, Matt thought. He settled for: “Who are you?” 

Horn Rim sighed. His next words were less clipped and more careless. “Um. I’m, I’m… just Father Ripper.” 

Matt felt like the name should be familiar, but couldn’t think why. 

“And those guys- those guys weren’t human. They were like… and you… and… the thing with the cross, they just ran away.” 

Father Ripper- Matt placed a mental question mark next to the name- inhaled through his nose. “I was lucky. They were fledgelings led by an idiot. They’re still out there, and still dangerous. To be fully rid of them, I’ll require someone else.” 

Matt nodded uncertainly. 

“Where am I going?” 

“Uh… I have a place above Zeph’s Garage.” He gave some quick directions.

Horn Rim nodded. 

“’m gonna pass out now, okay?” 

“Yes, by all means,” Horn Rim said indifferently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some quick annotations, so you won't make the mistake of thinking I'm being original:  
> -The movie with Tom Cruise: Yeah, I have no idea when this story is set. I would have guessed in '92, to coincide with the Buffy movie. But "Interview" didn't come out until '94. I just assumed McNamara was more likely to watch the movie than read Anne Rice. Just don't think about it too hard.  
> -Passages from the Slayer Handbook: Dr. Grost is from "Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter". The Cult of Dionin is from "Lair of the White Worm".  
> -Kimberly: We see a girl crying at Kurt Kelly's funeral in the movie. We don't learn who she is, but from context it's clear she's a relative, probably a little sister. Here I decided to name her after Kimberly Cobain, the sister of another Kurt who famously committed suicide.  
> -Rhonda the waitress: I'm told Whedon's original prototype for Buffy was "Rhonda the Immortal Waitress". I doubt this will be significant in the long run for this story, but it's mildly amusing.  
> -Matt and Clyde aren't really OCs. They're in the original Heathers movie, in the lunchtime poll scene. ("Spookiest question I ever heard", and "Get a lion and shove a bomb up its butt", respectively). The names are in the script but never get mentioned in the final cut. Here they're obviously filling in for Pike and Benny from the Buffy movie, but as long as we're naming all our favorite teen movies I also like to think they're channeling a slightly sleazier Bill and Ted.  
> -Lost Boys: In the planning phases I had planned for Amilyn to be replaced with David from The Lost Boys. Since he was played by Kiefer Sutherland, I thought I could spin it into a joke about how his father Donald Sutherland played Merrick in the Buffy movie. I eventually decided it was too abstract even for me.  
> -Ripper: More on this later.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me some time. You would think quarantine was conducive to sitting still and writing, but I guess not.

It was past midnight when Veronica made it back home. Surprisingly enough, Betty was still awake, swaddled in blankets on the couch, and gave her a quiet welcoming wave from the couch. Veronica plopped onto the adjacent cushion.

The TV was on. _The Company Of Wolves_ , an old favorite. That had been a suggestion of Veronica’s. Betty had a list of well-worn VHS tapes to which she had been utterly devoted since childhood. The list included _Labyrinth_ and _Ladyhawke_. Veronica remembered numerous efforts wasted trying to sneak in somewhere and watch something with a good old-fashioned bloody murder in it. _Nightmare on Elm Street_ had been good, brain-rotting fun; she recalled nursing a crush on the kid who got sucked into the bed. Betty had chickened out on that occasion, stayed either by the guilt of sneaking into a theater or fear, maybe both. Veronica couldn’t recall how she’d talked Betty into _Company_ , but somehow it had made its way onto the list.

Betty was and had always been pathologically good and sweet and kind and nice and, frankly, a bit soppy. Veronica had always been a bit more… “rebellious” was the polite word. Betty had made attending Mass a bigger priority than date night, and Veronica had perfected forged hall passes halfway through freshman year. They were as different as night and day. Theirs was a friendship that shouldn’t have lasted, and technically hadn’t. Veronica had gone off to join the Heathers, who generally wouldn’t associate with Betty Finn any more than they would with, say, a leper.

It was another bullet point in a long list of things Veronica had done that she was not proud of. But she’d made it a point never to cast her old friend fully aside. You could lie and cheat and sneak into movies and shoplift and sneak booze and have sex with college guys, but you had to draw the line somewhere, and for Veronica the line was drawn decisively between her and megabitchery.

 _Not murder, though._ Oh, shut up, Heather, Veronica thought wearily. Heather Chandler was never far from her thoughts, it seemed, giving a gleefully nasty little voice to doubt and self-loathing. Kurt and Ram, too, on rarer occasions. And every once in a while… someone best forgotten. Whatever the pills were supposed to do, they didn’t appear to be curbing these little internal quarrels. Maybe she should try actually taking more of them. Or telling someone. Just throw caution to the wind, let them lock you in a padded room.

Betty let the movie reach a quieter scene before she spoke up. “How was the club?” she asked, sounding rather more interested than necessary.

Veronica couldn’t help but smile a bit. Betty was, famously, not particularly adept at social occasion. Sometimes, Veronica thought her roommate was a little in awe of her, living secondhand off experiences she was too nervous to seek out herself. 

“Fine. Mac’s doing okay. Bumped into Metalhead Matt. And his boyfriend.”

“Oh, them. I was terrified of them!”

_We know_

“He’s still a colossal dweeb. Showed up drunk, tried to hit on us, left sad. We would have liked to have you there.”

Betty went slightly pink. “Oh, I don’t- I mean- I didn’t really know your other friends that well. I’d feel kind of left out.”

“You’re just nursing Heatherphobia. Trust me, she’s not nearly as bad as she used to be in school.”

Betty gave a slightly nervous shrug and a tiny smile.

“Oh, I forgot to mention. Your work called. They said you _are_ on for Monday.”

Ah. That was good. Sort of. It meant money, provided work could be survived. Something to get out of the house for, at least. “Oh. Great.”

Carnival music played on the TV as fops in powdered wigs transformed into wolves, but neither girl was really paying attention at this point. Betty was looking at her in that concerned way; Veronica could tell. Cumulatively speaking, Betty was her oldest friend. They’d gotten through good times, a few bad ones, and about a thousand Archie Comics jokes (everyone thought they were the first to notice). Different as they both were, there had only ever been one person who understood her better, and he… that hadn’t worked out. 

Veronica huddled up on her side of the couch, and found herself wishing her old cat JFK were still alive. Betty worked up an uncharacteristic show of courage. “Ronnie, are you… okay?”

_No, not for years now._

“I just meant… you’ve been sort of… quiet, lately. I know it’s normal to have ups and downs, even for a long time after… something like-“

_Four people you know decide to off themselves, without actually deciding to off themselves?_

“With Heather, and Jason- I just meant, I want to make sure you’re okay.”

If it had been anyone else- Dr. Murray, Mom, Dad, even Mac- Veronica would probably have given into the instinct to get up and walk away without saying a word. Just hearing his name was enough to make her stomach drop. But this was Betty. She owed it to her.

“I’m fine. Mac wanted to talk about Kurt, that blindsided me a bit, and she was... she was talking about weird shit. Stuff.”

“Weird how?”

Veronica sighed. “She was gushing about how I was there for everyone or something. Went into this whole speech just jilling me off-“ Betty went pink again- “-and I was just off-guard a little. That’s not me.”

There was a moment of quiet, except for the movie.

Betty found her voice. “Ronnie, you beat yourself up a lot over some things. But none of that was your fault-“ 

Veronica stood up. “I’ve got to get to bed.”

“Alright. Night.” The look of concern was still there.

Veronica made it to her room and flicked the light on. With a start, she realized she still had the weird book from earlier today, clutched under her arm. She set it down on a desk and flopped onto bed. For a moment, she considered writing something in her diary- it had been months, maybe more than a year- but couldn’t work up the effort. Lately none of her thoughts seemed worth recording.

That night she dreamed of chasing monsters in black robes across the rooftops of Venice.

***

_Down below Sherwood, Ohio, in the place where the Master slept…_

Currently, he called himself Amilyn. A friend had suggested it while they were drunk, or more accurately while they had split a drunk. He had not been aware at the time that the friend had gotten the name from a tattoo on said drunk’s arm. He did not learn of this fact until a bit later, and by then was forced to stick with the name to save face, though he did eventually air his grievances with that friend in private. By nailing him to a wall, facing east. Amilyn still had the ashes somewhere, in a small pouch he would put under the pillow in his coffin when he had trouble sleeping.

In any case, currently he called himself Amilyn, which was merely the most recent in a series of names he had used in about six hundred years of life. He had gone by a different name in his first life, which by all rights would have ended in Crecy by English longbow-shot to the gut, had his sire not seen potential in him. So he had had an opportunity to use a different name posing as a physician’s assistant in Liguria when the plague broke out, and another when he had first come across the sea to a New World. He had learned to change with the times, for those of his kind who did not learn this skill could not have lasted as long as he had.

In all that time, mercenary and plague doctor and sailor, in all six hundred years of what you could technically call his life, Amilyn had served the Master. Killed for the Master, hunted for the Master, obeyed the Master, and learned to fear the Master’s disappointment. Tonight Amilyn had great cause to fear.

“…sleeper shall awaken… sleeper shall awaken…”

“This we undertake in humility and fear, in the cause of the Old Ones who reigned in the dark times. Archaeus, the serveant of Maloker Ibt al-Jauza. Kandar the Taker of Souls, whose whispers the dead hear. Gozer the keeper of hounds. Ogdru eb Jurhad. Fenric the Unspeakable. Leviathan and the Caloyers of the Gash, and Z’Gord who watches in shadows.”

Everyone was doing that stupid chanting again. And Luke was leading. Fucking Luke, three-hundred pounds of muscle with a six-ounce brain piloting from behind a billboard of a forehead, brownnosing the Master ass every waking hour. Amilyn had fond memories of his own sire, Lothos, but he remembered their relationship being strictly professional. He was pretty certain he’d never been as much of a kiss-ass as Fucking Luke.

Someone had decided the Order’s subterranean congregation place should be decorated like a church, which was meant to be ironic or something. This meant lots of ornate candlesticks- _We don’t need candles! We can see in the dark!_ Amilyn raged inwardly- and stained glass. Where the altar would have been was a pool filled with dark red liqu- it was blood, alright? It was blood. Self-respecting cultists didn’t take the time to dig a pool and fill it with prune juice, not even when blood might serve them a more practical purpose.

Luke continued his hymn, and the faithfuls of the Order of Aurelius, kneeling or prostrating or clinging to the ceiling like stalactites, intoned along with him. Amilyn couldn’t help but notice that leather coats were popular this season, and was embarrassed to realize at least two other people in the congregation were wearing the same thing as him.

“Sleeper shall awaken… and the world will drown in blood.”

Fucking Luke was finally finished. The red liquid bubbled, and the Master rose from its depths. Their condition- Amilyn’s, Luke’s, the Master’s- it grew harder to hide with age. With time, features grew less and less human. Amilyn sometimes felt his face giving way to more bestial features when he was angry. But the Master had cast aside any semblance of humanity a long time ago. His face could not pass for human. His head was bald, the pale skin drawn taught around the bones of his eyes and cheeks. His ears had become pointed and broad, and his nose flat and lumpy like a bat’s. His lips could not close comfortably over huge fangs, leaving him to lisp as he spoke. His eyes glinted deep wine-red in candlelight. 

There in the candlelight, the Master stood still and quiet, now ankle-deep in his bath of blood, letting the residue slough off his skin. Luke, on his knees, kissed a ringed and taloned finger. The Master breathed in quietly and spoke.

“I read somewhere this was supposed to be soothing. I’ve really got to say I’m not feeling it. Everything gets all congealed, the warmth wears off so quickly, it takes forever to set up… no. It’s not for me.”

Amilyn noticed that the boss-man hadn’t even taken off his clothes. Black leather, naturally. _Old Ones below, do we all dress like that? Why have I never noticed this before?_

The Master of the Order of Aurelius, still muttering darkly about the logistics of blood-bathing, took ginger steps across the surface of the pool to his throne. Fucking Luke, hunched down to an almost-normal human height, followed at his side, clearly deliberating on whether taking his Master’s arm or giving a respectful amount of space was the more sycophantic option. The boss-man took his time getting seated and then made everyone wait moments longer while he pretended to compose his thoughts or something.

“Amilyn. Good of you to join us. No doubt you know why you’ve been called here.”

There was a deliberate silence, long enough for Amilyn to wonder if the statement was intended as a question.

“You went hunting last night. Your reckless action allowed a witness to escape. I believe this constitutes what the kids nowadays call a loose end, for reasons that still elude me. The Order had made it policy for food to be aware of our existence.”

Amilyn tried to grit his fangs without making it too obvious. He wondered which flunky sold him out. Well, find out later, and then bite their spine out through the back of their neck first chance you get, but first convince boss-man not to have you staked. Trying not to sound sullen, he said:

“I was interrupted, sire. By a Watcher. And I brought back a cow with some juice left in it-“

“Yes, of course. We were most honored to receive a gift of either your leftovers or else another mouth to feed.”

Amilyn’s teeth clamped down again. The Master’s decision was already made, surely. This whole scene was just a stupid show for his little courtiers.

“Still,” the Master continued. “A Watcher. They’ve been a more serious nuisance than this in the past. I suppose your failures could be forgiven in that case.”

Nobody present failed to catch the hidden barb there.

“I do wonder what’s brought this area to their attention. I was certain their attentions were occupied elsewhere. But it’s a small matter. Perhaps your byblow can be useful too. Will the witness be a problem?”

“No, Master. He was a drunk. What little he saw would never be believed.”

“Nonetheless, I want you to deal with him.”

Amilyn was genuinely puzzled. “You- why?”

“Because I want to make sure you can still follow instructions,” the Master said, his voice now definitely sharper.

Amilyn bit his tongue, making a conscious effort not to do so literally.

“Get rid of the witness. You said your new byblow was his friend? Then steps must be taken to make it seem an accident. If they had loved ones, find a way to cover up both deaths, something plausible enough to allay suspicion. We already have one Watcher to contend with. We don’t want any more attention. You are dismissed.”

Well, not too much harm do-

“After a nice rousing round of mortification. An arm, I think. Your choice of which.”

“I’m… Master, I don’t-“

A silvered knife, wrapped in thick covering, clattered at Amilyn’s feet.

“An arm, Amilyn. At the shoulder. Do it, or challenge me here and now.”

***  
The Master sat alone in his private chambers, surrounded by candlelight. Technically the candles were not necessary, since he had perfect night vision. Nonetheless, he had grown accustomed to a certain sense of ambiance. The candlelight put him at ease, just like Amilyn’s still-frantic screaming as a sacristan cauterized his arm-stump. Just made the place a bit homier.

Luke, loyal Luke, was standing patiently behind him.

“Soon,” the Master muttered to himself. “It’s taken so long. Living in the debris of this-“ he sniffed with contempt- “house of _worship_ , being fed on scraps like an ailing pet dog. Soon I’ll have the strength to break free.”

The Master turned.

“You’re being quiet, Luke. I like that, I really do. The Williams, my angel and my little poet- they had their charm, but they were often a headache. And ungrateful. Neither of them here to witness my moment of triumph. No doubt off traipsing around New Spain, at the other Hellmouth, perhaps stirring up trouble for Wilkins or Balthasar or some other. Not like you, Luke, oh, no. But I sense something is troubling you, and I do wish you’d speak up.”

Luke, standing straight with his hands clasped in front of his groin, cleared his throat. “You let Amilyn live?”

“Yes. For now. He survived a long time on his own, so he must be good for something. And for now his focus will be on getting rid of our witness. That should keep him out of our way for now. He wishes to prove he can soar above the fledgelings, so let him prove he can fly.”

“And the Watcher?”

The Master shrugged.

“The Council is stretched thin. Not what it once was. If it’s only one, he will be dealt with soon enough. There’s little chance of him disrupting anything we’ve worked for.”

Luke’s massive face seemed less worried. Any facial musculature he could have used to properly smile was long since atrophied, but the Master did his best to convey one.

“Now. I’m hungry.”

Luke nodded hurriedly and went to check on the pens.

That had been an idea he was rather proud of. There was nothing quite like the thrill of the hunt. The Master knew that from his younger days. But times were changing, and the new race was growing, and hunting simply wasn’t a feasible way to feed a growing family. It really was time the Order took up farming.

Luke returned from the pens, dragging his Master’s meal by its neck-chain.

***

“Work” was basically just reception for some local political campaign. It wasn’t consistent, or pleasant, or really fulfilling But it paid. A little. Technically speaking, Veronica wasn’t as qualified for the job as she’d made the application seem, but then again the actual candidate didn’t seem qualified for the job she was running for either. Truthfully, the least bearable part of the job was having to wear a button with the boss’ name. “Heather Walsh for State Rep.” Good grief. 

Today was one of those days determined to drag by. People yelled and got upset and needed directions to things that were a few steps away and were generally stupid. And Veronica was left alone with her thoughts. Not the casual observation kind of thoughts, like “That’s funny, there don’t appear to be as many people at work today.” Thoughts like “I’ll be stuck here until I’m dead and maybe this is where I belong anyway.” 

And so it wasn’t totally a surprise when, in the closing minutes of the day, when it was getting a bit dark outside and the office was almost empty, that Veronica found her hand straying into her bag for a lighter. It had been a long time since she had last done this, but right about now she was fairly certain she couldn’t hold off forever, so might as well get it over with. Nobody was around, but she snuck into the break room for a little additional security. The lighter flicked on. Veronica lit a cig, braced herself through the first few puffs. 

Then she poked a finger into the way of the flame, long enough to sting a bit, recoiled, then worked her way through all the fingers on her left hand.  
She rolled back her sleeve, and lightly grazed her cigarette on the pale flesh of her arm. 

“Um.” Veronica jerked her hand back, heart pounding, and shot a deer-in-headlights look towards the voice. There was a young man- tanned, button-nosed, black hair tapered to one side- standing in the doorway, staring at her in a freaked-out way. He’d seen She’d been caught. Great. What now? Word would spread. Everyone would know. Her brain started weighing options. 

Go on the offensive, maybe? Scare him off before he works out what’s going on. “Fuck, can I _help_ you?” she tried to snarl. 

“Right. Sorry. Just, still new here, sort of wandered in and saw you sort of… well. first of all, I don’t think that’s you’re smoking that right.” 

The cig was still smoldering down in Veronica’s hand. She chucked it in a nearby ashtray. Her brain wasn’t cooperating anymore. Words wouldn’t come. She found herself staring at him. 

“Are you… okay?” 

No. Fuck off. What I do is none of your goddam business. “No. I guess not.”

***  
He wound up walking her to the lot. He’d offered to stop and grab food- “I think it’s allowed if you’re suicidal”- but Veronica had shut it down. He was quiet for a minute until the quiet got to be too much. 

“So. Strange girl. You’re pretty new, right? Front desk?” 

“Yes. It’s Veronica, by the way. Veronica Sawyer.” 

“Eddie. Edward, but. You know. Please just Eddie. I just wanted- does- what happened there- happen a lot?” 

Veronica hadn’t told anyone about it. Nothing at all. The only marks that really showed were far enough up her arm to be easily concealed. Her plan had basically been to go through life without ever being in a position where the subject might come up, ever. Evidently that wasn’t going to be an option anymore. And, what the hell… she couldn’t remember seeing him around. Maybe he didn’t show up to the office much. She was pretty sure he wasn’t going to spread anything around, and she might never see him again. 

“Comes and goes. Started it in high school.” 

“Kind of hardcore. Couldn’t you just try, I don’t know, carrying a security blanket? I keep a book in my dresser, that helps-” He was obviously trying to weasel a smile out of her, probably to make sure she wasn’t going to go back to burning the second he was out of sight. She was determined not to smile but she found she appreciated it a little. 

“It’s not a security thing. It’s more like- I guess- keeping myself in line.” 

Eddie seemed to think about that. “Yeah?” 

“I’m… I used to be a psych major.” _Among other things._ “I remember we had to read passages from the DMS. That’s for, like, diagnosing mental problems.” 

“Not my usual genre.” 

“I remember reading a lot of symptoms and thinking they… kind of sounded like me. Sometimes I feel like I’m on top of the world and everyone else is just stupid, and small. I can write like a million words a minute and I feel like a genius, and then sometimes I feel like I can’t trust myself.” 

Eddie apparently couldn’t find a joke about that one. “Right…” 

“And I remember this one article about psychopaths. It said something like they’re good with people, but they’re impulsive and detached from their own actions. And… I just thought. I’ve done things I’m not proud of, and I’ve hurt people. I don’t know if I meant to or not, but it took me forever to really realize I had. So maybe that was describing me.” 

“Hurt them, how?” 

_Ram’s face stared up at her. The eyes didn’t close, the mouth didn’t move. He looked scared. She’d never seen that expression on Ram’s face before._

“It doesn’t matter. It’s just… other people can crack jokes, right? They can say things like ‘God, I just want to put a bullet in her head, put her out of all our misery.’ And I just can’t. I feel like I don’t… whatever holds people back from those thoughts, I don’t think it’s in me. I’m good with people- like the book says, see? I remember names, I’m good at getting close. People trust me. And I just wish they wouldn’t. If they really knew me, they wouldn’t.”  
In the back of her mind, Veronica realized she was rambling now. Eddie looked like he was desperately searching for something to say. 

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to dump on you like that.” 

“Hey, no worries. Dump away. I mean. Um.” 

She felt her face crack into an unwilling smile. Eddie shot one back. 

“So, I don’t know about psychology, or hurting people, or anything. But I think maybe if a lot of people like you, and trust you, maybe you have to stop thinking it’s because you fooled them or something. Maybe they just think you’re actually worth liking.” 

Veronica wasn’t expecting him to say anything. She wasn’t sure what to think now that he had. 

“Are you… do you think you’re gonna be okay? No more-“ he mimed stubbing a cigarette on his arm. He was obviously trying to ask if she would be okay alone, without asking it like _that_. 

Veronica inhaled. “I’ll be good. I’ve got a roommate. I’ll just stick with her.” 

“Right. Um. Get home safe. Maybe see you around.” 

“Yeah.” Veronica turned and walked off. 

*** 

_Surreal,_ Eddie thought to himself. He watched the girl’s retreating form until it was out of sight, and shrugged. She seemed like she would be fine now, not that he was any judge. He realized it was dark out now. Somehow that little stretch of conversation had taken away the last little bits of evening light. Hands jammed into pockets, he turned in the opposite direction and walked off. Veronica. The thought “she was kind of cute, in a scary way” rattled around in his head. 

Eddie body could not react, nor his brain process information, fast enough for what happened next. Before he even really knew what was happening, two things with lumpy, monstrous faces lunged out of the dark and tackled him. Eddie had no time to scream before they bit his throat out. 

***

Matt was vaguely aware that he was slowly losing his mind. He hadn’t left his place, as the British dude-Father Ripper?- had instructed. A few days in the cramped confines of what-passed-for-his room would have made anyone stir crazy. Throw in a newfound fear of bat-faced, fanged monsters lurking in every shadow. He had convinced Zeph to throw some odd jobs his way, to scrape up as much money as he could. Licking envelopes, picking parts up, anything that didn’t keep him out of the building for too long or too late.

Zeph knew something was up, but it seemed he also knew it was serious enough not to press the issue. The rest of the crew, too. Even Corky, the grease-faced, tomboyish mechanic he regarded as an archenemy, had reduced her usual hostility to funny looks. That was fine by Matt; his mind was still replaying images of human faces bulging and deforming. Bizarrely, the whole thing was starting to seem unreal, even as it was slowly eating away every thought. People didn’t turn into monsters or bite people on the neck. Clyde wasn’t dead. This wasn’t real.

Since… that night, Matt hadn’t gotten through more than one or two hours of sleep in one go, and never at night when he could avoid it. At least one light was on at all times. He had a Walkman but his mind wouldn’t process music. He had some well-hidden magazines, but no focus. Whole days went by pacing and watching his leg bounce furiously up and down and jittering at the slightest noise. But his eyes were beginning to burn just from the effort of staying open, and his body just wasn’t accepting adrenal fumes anymore. Just a little sleep, for a moment…

Matt’s eyes shot open. He was in bed, facing the inner room, window to his back. Light from Zeph’s sign streamed in, barely illuminating anything. _Don’t turn around_. No, shut up, brain. There wasn’t anything there… 

_sreeeeeeee…_

Matt’s head probably turned at warp speed, but it felt like he was moving through molasses. Clyde was there, usual spaced-out smile on the other side of the window, dragging a finger down the glass pane. For a split second, seeing that face was the biggest feeling of relief Matt had ever felt. His friend was alive, after all. It hadn’t been real. Clyde was alive and well and- and he was standing on thin air outside the window Matt’s second-floor room.

He struggled to find his voice. “Clyde.”

“Invite me in, man. Don’t dick around, it’s cold out.” Clyde’s fingernail had left a scratch on the glass. The window was closed. Locked. A human voice couldn’t be coming through so clearly. It did anyway. 

“You. You’re not you. I saw you- that guy bit you through the neck. You died, Clyde.”

Clyde’s mouth turned up at one corner. It might have passed for a smile, to a blind person maybe. His forehead leaned forward and pressed against the pane. Something about his face seemed different. The skin seemed waxy-pale. The eyes seemed deeper and hollower and emptier than Matt remembered them.

“Let me in, man. I’m hungry,” Clyde said, sounding totally reasonable.

“Clyde, man. You’re… you don’t look so good. I think you’re on something nasty and it’s late and I really think you should go home and sleep it off and go away. Please,” Matt’s voice sounded frantic in his ears.

“Nasty? Nah. It’s great, Matt. I’ve never felt better. I can hear worms carving their way through the earth. Wolves, bats, night birds, singing while they hunt. It’s fucking metal, man. Children of the night and the music they make.”

Matt struggled to get the words out of his throat. “Go away.”

“You gotta feel this. All the doubts and sorrows, they just fade away. All my problems are gone. S’like watching them all flow out of you, down the drain. Only problem is being hungry. So let me in, man. Please. We’re friends.”

His mind raced. Swallowing and breathing were supposed to be reflex actions. They weren’t supposed to be so difficult. His mind raced. Father Ripper had done something- with the cross, and muttering about tea, or something. His mind raced. Cross. Monsters. Two and two makes- okay. So holy shit worked, and if tea counted for British dude, then why not…

“I’m _HUNGRY_ , Matt-“

“ _Sheets of empty canvas, untouched sheets of clay… l-laid out before me as her body once did._.” Matt did his best to keep his voice steady and in time with the music in his head. It sounded terrible in his ears but he kept it as strong as he could.

“ _Aaaaall five horizons, revolved around her soul as the earth to the sun._ ” In lieu of a cross, he clutched his battered old Walkman in his hand as tight as he could, and forced himself to _think_ of a cross. The best he could manage was the Blue Öyster Cult logo. Hopefully Jesus would understand. “ _Now the air I tasted and breathed has taken a turn. Oo-ooooh,_ ”

The thing that had been Clyde looked sickly, like something in his gut was fighting to get out. By the first refrain he had reeled back, heels of his hands buried in his inhuman eyes, making pitiful noises. Matt poured some more soul into it.

“ _-how quick the sun can drop away! And now my bitter hands cradle broken glass, of what was everything! All the pictures have been washed in black, tattooed everything!_ ”

Clyde screamed at last and bolted from the sill, vanishing in the night.

Matt crumpled onto the floor. He hadn’t pissed himself again. That was some kind of progress, he guessed.

“Said… go sleep it off, fuck.”

Father Ripper had said to stay put. But if those things knew where he was, this place wasn’t going to be safe. Time to hand in notice, scrape up as much money as he could, and blow town. Just after some sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit briefer this time...  
> -Veronica's job: There is a rumor I've heard floating around, that Winona Ryder once pitched a sequel to Heathers that would have had a now-adult Veronica working as a White House staffer who butts heads with the First Lady, a woman named (of course) Heather. As fate would have it, this new Heather would attempt to blackmail her over her past, Veronica would "accidentally" (?) kill her trying to negotiate, and be forced to cover up murder again. J.D. was supposed to show up as an "Obi-Wan" character (presumably meaning a ghost). Even Ryder didn't seem to take this pitch too seriously, but... I mean. I'd watch it.  
> I'd like to think this fic leaves room to move towards that scenario in the more remote future.


	4. Chapter 4

When Veronica showed up for work that morning, some part of her understood what had happened even before her brain had fully worked it out. There was a small crowd around the offices, and at least one police officer jotting on a notepad while someone chattered. The sight made her stomach feel hollow, her legs heavy, and the distance in front of her eyes distort. All that, and whatever it was this time, she was pretty sure she hadn’t even done it. A gurney was being wheeled out the front door. The hollow feeling intensified.

Snippets of surrounding conversation filled her ears.  
“-mostly kept to himself. Will this be in the news?”  
“-happens all the time now. It’s all because of society-“  
“God, could they just let us in already? What’s taking so long?”

Veronica managed to get someone’s attention- God, what was her name? Jenn?- as she passed. “What happened here?”

“You know Eddie? They found his body crammed in a locker in the back, missing a lot of blood. There was a note on him, so they’re calling it suicide.” Jenn hustled on.

But I just talked to him last night. He was fine. Suicides don’t cram themselves into lockers! _I didn’t do this one._ Veronica’s head, crowded at the best of times, was flooded with thoughts competing for attention. For bonus misery, Heather Chandler’s voice chimed in. _How sad. Another wannabe disciple of mine, trying so hard not to be ordinary. Where’s the originality? Nothing better replacing offing yourself this season? Hey, think their funeral will be better than mine?_ Oh, God, not now. Shut up, Heather.

Impossible as it seemed, this could just be an ordinary suicide. It had to be. They happened. He hadn’t seemed suicidal, but, well… sometimes people didn’t, right? They seemed really happy, or at peace, or something, because they thought they’d found a way out. It all made sense. What was the alternative? Someone else moving in on her MO? Some kind of Jekyll-and-Hyde scenario? It had to just be a normal suicide.

Something was nibbling about the edge of her consciousness. Most of the people in the crowd around her were at least vaguely familiar, people who worked at the same office. A few strangers, probably rubberneckers, because who didn’t like a nice suicide to gawk at? But still, a neuron in her brain was gnawing at a synapse, trying to kick it out of sleep. Veronica’s eyes darted back and forth to the faces in the audience. There was a strong-chinned onlooker in a denim shirt whose big, cartoony eyes seemed a bit too intent at the gurney as it was hoisted onto a truck. No, not him.

Lurking not too far from Big Chin, an overgrown frat-boy type clad with a greasy mullet, clad in a tank top with a cartoon Fu Manchu on it, failing to look inconspicuous. No, not him either. Then- there. Synapses started working overtime. It was Horn Rim Guy. From the pharmacy. They guy who’d given her the book. So much had happened since then that the whole thing had slipped out of her mind, like something out of a dream, but now it was rushing back. Horn Rim stood on the other side of the crowd, looking grimly at the gurney procession, but Veronica was certain he was aware of her. 

Without meeting her gaze, the man slipped out of sight. Veronica struggled to follow his trajectory, weaving through bodies. She wasn’t fully aware that she was now following him, and couldn’t have explained why she was. Horn Rim had given her the book, and now he was here. Two unexplained things in her life, and he’d been there for both. Something was going on and ignoring it was like _not_ tugging at a loose thread.

Horn Rim was through the thick of the crowd now, walking briskly into the office. With the body departing, everyone seemed uninterested in the building but still focused on milling about; the building was empty, and he went unnoticed. He always seemed to be just out of sight; as Veronica was getting to the entrance door, he was ducking into the breakroom door. There weren’t any exits from there, except… Veronica wasn’t certain what the building was used for when it wasn’t rented out by city council hopefuls, but there were two mostly-unused locker rooms. Jenn had said something about Eddie’s body being found in a locker. Veronica hurried to the room as quickly as possible without actually running. She was fully expecting to enter the locker room and find Horn Rim disappeared.

Instead he was standing quite calmly between a bench and a locker, looking her dead in the eye as she walked in. It suddenly occurred to Veronica that chasing a strange guy into a secluded area, following a probable murder, was not the best idea. Worse, the situation was starting to bring back memories.

_The boiler room. Dark. Gloomy. Just a touch of red emergency light. Like a glimpse of hell. A disturbed mind might feel at home here. Right now, a disturbed mind WAS at home here. She was pretty sure she could hear him humming…_

“Well. Hello again.” Same British, gentle voice. A bit clipped, like he was impatient but doing his best to hide it.

Veronica wasn’t ready to fully let her guard down, but she realized was hard to see the man as a real threat. More “teacher disappointed over a missed assignment” than “predator”.  
She did her best to put some hardness in her voice. “You’re following me. You were at the pharmacy, out of nowhere, and now you’re here. I mean, maybe hanging around suicide scenes is your idea of a fun time, but more likely you’re following me.”

“Fun? Hardly. I’d much prefer to be at home with a good book, maybe a cup of Bovril.”

Unsure what to make of that, Veronica opted to let that pass without comment.

“Just… who are you? What do you want from me?”

Horn Rim collapsed in slow motion onto the bench, muttering wearily so Veronica could only barely hear. “I thought I would have more time. Complications… there’s so much to teach you, and no time now.”

The glasses slid back. “My organization has been searching for you a long time, Ms. Sawyer.” He knew her name. That didn’t seem like a good sign. “I’m here t-to bring you your birthright.”

“Birthright? Like… some kind of trust fund?”

Horn Rim looked blank for a moment. He slid his glasses off his face, massaged his eyes for a moment, and then rested his forehead on the back of one hand, apparently gathering thoughts. Veronica felt herself flush a little. The jury was out on whether or not she was being stalked, but now she was feeling like the stupid one in the room. It was a new sensation for her, and not one she much liked. 

Horn Rim gave his glasses a quick rub and continued speaking. “The mouth of hell is on the verge of opening. Someone is needed to stand against the forces of darkness, and I’m afraid in spite of all logic, that someone is you. Veronica Sawyer, you are the chosen one. Only you can end these killings and stop the vampires. That’s why I’m afraid I must ask you to come with me to the graveyard.”

Well, that settled it. This had to be a prank of some kind. Veronica wasn’t sure she understood what the joke exactly, but the words “prank” and “stupid” were not exactly uncommon companions. But that still didn’t make sense. Neither Betty nor Mac would have bothered planning something like this out. There weren’t any other credible suspects- coworkers barely knew how she was, and she didn’t really interact with anyone else from school. So, if not a prank, the logical conclusion was that Horn Rim was insane, which wasn’t a comforting thought.

Finding her voice at last, Veronica fell back on time-honored tactics. She had mastered sarcastic scorn a long time before Heather Chandler had given her a few additional tips.

“Vampires. Right. Did Elvis tell you about this? Aliens maybe? Tell me, do you smell burned toast at all?”

Horn Rim sighed. “I don’t have time for this prattling. Neither do you, or anybody else.“

“No, sorry. You should really think about taking out an ad or something, in the _Inquirer_ maybe. ‘Chosen One wanted.’ Later.” Veronica swung on her heel and started marching.

“Just above your right collarbone, there’s a small black birthmark roughly in the shape of a scythe,” Horn Rim called out to her retreating back.

Veronica froze and turned slowly. “How… I had that removed,” she said quietly. More to the point, she’d never told anyone about it. Not Betty. Not Heather. Or Heather, or Heather, for that matter. Not worth giving them the ammunition.

“The Mark of the Coven, placed on the first of the line, as a signifier of destiny. There’s more. Sometimes, you feel separate from the rest of humanity, but you also feel uncommonly protective of those around you, even those you barely know.”

_Well, marching into hell and diffusing a bomb to save a school you regularly fantasize about burning to the ground…_

“Sometimes you are capable of things other people are not.”

_Shooting a guy’s fingers clean off, first time using a gun?_

“And you often dream that you’re someone else.”

Veronica finally managed to find her voice.

“Pretty sure everyone does that. The rest of it… I’ve heard of this trick before. It’s called cold reading.”

Horn Rim pressed. “You dream about other people, at other times in history. Probably always fighting against vam- against people with fangs and monstrous faces. In every generation, one is born, and each shares the memories of her predecessors. For this generation, that is, I’m afraid, you. You are the Slayer.”  
Fight back the urge to ask ‘Like the band?’ That’s just tacky.

“You get one or two little things right, then I’m supposed to buy all the rest of it. Even the stuff you clearly just made up, like me, ‘capable of things others are not,’ that’s all bullsh-“

Horn Rim pulled the dagger out from his lapel.  
Horn Rim threw the dagger with a practiced flick of his wrist.  
The dagger flew right in the direction of Veronica’s face.  
All of this seemed to happen in no more than a fraction of a second.

In less time than it took to process it all, Veronica’s hands clapped together and halted the dagger’s trajectory. The tip of the blade was a few inches away from poking a hole in her left cornea.

“Hm. Good catch.”

“You… you threw a dagger at me!”

“But you caught it.”

“You _threw a dagger at me_!”

“Yes, but you caught it.”

“I don’t fucking believe this! Is that your, what, your vampire slayer test? Do you ever get it _wrong_? Oh, God, what would have happened if I wasn’t-“

“If you weren’t truly the one?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Adrenaline was coursing through her. Veronica felt more alive than she had in a long, long time. Images from the weird dreams were suddenly flashing in front of her eyes, or maybe not images, just impressions, memories. _The beast had killed ten between Richmond and New Orleans until it confronted her- The dusty remains of the white-haired demon they called Deacon spilled out on the subway tracks, and Nikki Wood tugged up the collar of her leather coat- In the castle atop the California suburb, she fought a snow-pale patchwork man with garden shears for fingers-_

Veronica realized her breath had slowed. With barely a sense of adjustment, she allowed it to return to his normal rate. Her head turned to focus on Horn Rim, who had sat himself calmly upon a bench and was staring her down impassively.

“Of course, if you have any more doubts-“

She punched him in the nose. He slid several feet back and nearly lost his seating.

“Oh, Jesus! I didn’t-“ 

“t’s fine.” His voice sounded muffled behind his cupped hand. He pulled a crisp white handkerchief- because of course- out of his breast pocket and dabbed at his face.

“I’ve never… punched anyone like that before.”

“Well, you’ve, ah, clearly got something of a natural aptitude.” 

Veronica struggled for words and found they wouldn’t come. Horn Rim calmly got to his feet and walked over to the door. It was a wonder nobody’d heard them and walked in yet.

Horn Rim cleared his throat. “Now. Hopefully it’s obvious there’s more at work here than, than a simple cold reading trick. I suggest that, if you truly want answers, you meet me at the graveyard tonight. Around sundown would be best, I think. Yes.”

Veronica said nothing. Horn Rim, looking as dignified as you can with a handkerchief hugging a bloody nose, opened the door. Halfway on his way out, he turned to her again and said, “Incidentally, my name is Rupert Giles.”

***

Thick, orange sunset was giving way to night when Veronica arrived at Sherwood Cemetery. She had left Betty curled up with an old book, vaguely claiming to be going out with Mac- not that she needed to explain that sort of thing, but it felt right. “Giles” wasn’t in the parking lot. There was, however, a grey, worn, rather geeky looking car with the license plate 2GPU947. It wasn’t a stuffy middle aged Englishman, but it seemed fairly conclusive evidence that one had been in the vicinity recently. Veronica had to wander around the graves and groves a bit until she found the man, clad in a woolly brown jacket and leaning against a tree, staring intently at a secluded grave.

“Ah. Welcome. D’you, ah, have any trouble, f-finding the place?”

Veronica couldn’t tell if he was being serious, and decided to assume he was. “Uh. Not really. Been here before. Buried my old cat JFK.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. There’s sort of a secret spot over there for pets.”

“Right.”

“In any case, you’ll need this.” From an inner pocket in his coat, the man pulled a sharpened wooden stake and handed it to Veronica. She stared for a moment before finally taking it. 

There was a moment’s quiet. It was already getting much darker. Veronica searched for the correct conversation starter for waiting out in a graveyard with a stalker who thinks you’re the chosen one. She contemplated asking him about the accent, realized it was something Mac would ask, and abandoned the thought entirely.

Something about Horn Ri- about Giles was still bothering her. She was even more convinced that his presence felt familiar, and now being surrounded by stone crosses was making that feeling even more pronounced. Wait.

“I _do_ know you! You were at Heather Chandler’s funeral.”

Giles was jerked out of his reverie. “Ah. Well, yes. This is not the first time I’ve been in Sherwood, Ohio.”

There was an obvious default joke about nobody willingly coming back to Sherwood twice, but it seemed unimportant now.

“You were the priest! You called yourself-“ Veronica struggled- “Father Ripper, or something.”

Giles looked embarrassed. “Yes, well. Not my best choice of alias. A former nickname of mine. Had to, to improvise a sort of American evangelical preacher persona to make it convincing. The best I could do on, on short notice.”

“So you’ve been following me- for how long exactly?”

“Fol-? I beg yo- I came to Sherwood on official Watchers’ Council business.”

Veronica started in what she hoped was an inviting-you-to-explain-better kind of way.

Giles cleared his throat. He didn’t seem as focused or as intense as he had in the locker room; he seemed anxious. “The Watchers’ Council. That, ah, that would be my shower. We received reports of improbable deaths passed off as unconvincing suicides, we naturally assumed some vampire activity was at work.”

Veronica’s first thoughts were that he was talking about vampires again, and she was starting to wonder if he was nuts again. That thought got tripped up when he started talking about the “suicides”. Woops. Heartbeat rising again.

“My, ah, investigation turned up no sign of vampire activity, so we concluded it was a mundane case of suicide. However, it was at that time that you came under our attentions. The Slayer gives off, ah, certain signs that can be detected by our methods.”

Veronica seized the opportunity to change the subject. “You keep saying that. ‘Slayer.’ That’s me? What exactly is that?”

“Vampire Slayer, yes. The product of a ritual performed by tribal shamans in central Africa millennia ago. The essence of a shadowy demon, bonded to a young girl, reincarnated in every generation. Each time born with abilities and awareness beyond those of normal human beings, pledged to protect against demons, vampires, and various sundry forces of evil.”

He was hitting his stride now. Lecturing seemed to be something he could do on autopilot. His attention was divided between her and the grave again. She let him babble a bit more.

Vampires. Reincarnation. Demons. Shaman. Magical English teachers. This was starting to sound like a very stupid prank again. Dagger or not, Veronica was pretty sure she didn’t buy any of this. She decided to probe around a bit. She’d come this far, anyway.

“So you read about suicides in the paper, you automatically assume vampires.”

“Mm. It’s a common tactic among their, their kind. Typically they act parasitically. Simply don’t have th-the strength for much beyond that. Attach themselves to the depressed and the desperate, exacerbate, so that they can be drained discretely and authorities will simply dismiss the whole thing. Normally we don’t see them acting this way.”

There didn’t seem to be any suitable reply to that. “So. What are we doing here, exactly?”

Giles cleared his throat. “There was a death which caught my attention, nearly a week ago. Several, in fact, but in this case the body was recovered, and buried. Hopefully it’s nothing, but assuming it isn’t, it’s best to keep watch over the grave for three nights or so.” 

“So, we just wait.”

“Well, ah, yes. We wait and see if-“ he squinted- “Mr. Roger Berman feels like getting up for a walk.” 

Great. Should have brought a book or a snack or something. Veronica realized that it had gotten very dark. 

***

Veronica had lost track of how much time had passed. It had to be 9, maybe 10 PM. The last of the sunlight was very definitely gone now, and graveyards, it turned out, were not terribly well lit. And seemingly had less security than one would expect. In the passing hours, Horn Rim hadn’t made a perceptible shift from his waiting spot. Once or twice, he had sung songs from last century, tunelessly and under his breath ( _"Que sera sera..."_ ). Meanwhile Veronica hadn’t been able to resist the impulse to pace back and forth, tossing the wooden stake up and catching it as it fell. She wasn’t sure what good it was supposed to be, anyway. Assuming it was going into someone’s heart, didn’t you need a hammer?

At least five times she’s considered giving up the whole thing. Each time, she kept thinking about the dreams, wondering how the old man could have known about them. If it was somehow a trick, she knew she had to find out how he’d done it. So at least five times she’d resolved to stay just a little bit longer. She was briefly reminded of Charlie Brown waiting in vain for the Great Pumpkin. Or the kid with the blanket. Whoever it was that waited for the Great Pumpkin. 

She was contemplating it for the sixth time when the ground in front of the grave convulsed, buckled, and gave birth to a set of long, pale fingers. 

Veronica’s face went cold as the blood drained out. Giles seemed to jolt awake. 

The fingers struggled, clawed. Gravesoil collapsed into a miniature sinkhole. A pair of pale arms emerged from the earth, and shortly an entire torso clad in tattered Sunday best. Once upon a time, the thing had clearly been a ferret-faced, thin man with limp, pale-blond hair. Now the eyes glowed sickly in the darkness, lighting up a lattice of burst capillaries. The lower jaw detached and lolled, revealing needle-point fangs. There was a sound coming from the thing’s throat, like a wounded animal snarling or newborn crying or a resuscitated man gasping for air. It was here. It was real. Like the things in the dreams. 

Veronica froze. In the back of her mind, she was aware that this was not a good time to freeze, but for some reason her muscles had inconveniently chosen to no longer consult with her brain. Roger Berman burst from the ground like a jack-in-the-box, then hunched over, head spasming, as though overwhelmed with new sights and sounds. Suddenly the glowing eyes locked in her direction. They looked very wide and hungry. 

Giles was suddenly staggering into action, fumbling with something in gloved hands. 

“Um. Avaunt, please,” he said politely, holding up a cross in his gloved hands. Berman recoiled, seeming to cower in horror. And then, to the cosmic amusement of some sadistic god somewhere, Giles tripped on a tree root, letting the cross slip from his grasp. 

_ohshit_

Berman let out an animal scream and lunged at the Englishman, foaming like a rabid dog. Veronica’s brain didn’t give her any time to process the act, and probably wouldn’t have been able to do it if she had. She simply ran forward and dove into the attacker. Her macabre unconscious mind played images of Kurt and Ram in varsity jackets, hooting encouragingly. She must have hit the assailant off balance, because she managed to knock him back. Now she was lying on top of him. And he was looking her dead in the eye. _Well. I’ve got him. Now what?_

“The heart!” Giles wheezed, a few steps behind her. 

The stake. She still had it. The thing. Its heart. Eyes. Staring at her. Heart. Stab. Now. Her arm seemed to be moving in slow motion. Lift stake. His arms wrenched free. He didn’t seem to know whether to lift them in defense or lunge for the throat. Stake brought down. He tried to grab her arm, but didn’t manage it. The sharpened bit of wood broke through skin. There should have been ribs. Big, thick rib bones. Somehow they didn’t offer any resistance. 

For less than a second, the wide, glowing, bloodshot eyes seemed human and relieved. Then life-unlife- seemed to leave them entirely. Milk-pale skin tautened over the skull. A rancid sigh seemed to leave the entire body and it went limp.

Veronica fell backwards and scuttled backwards, reverse crab-style. Perfect, vampires were real and now more dead bodies. Good ending to the evening. At least this one didn’t bleed all over the place. In fact, as she watched, it appeared to be slowly breaking down into grey dust. 

Giles was at her shoulder, trying to do something comforting without actually touching her. 

“Terribly sorry, I got myself overexcited, just didn’t see that, there- are you alright?”

“Yes,” Veronica heard herself say. 

“You, ah, you did very well. Certainly made up for my little mishap. I’m afraid I usually work on the research side of things. Still very new at fieldwork, you know.” 

“’s good,” Veronica heard herself say. “That… that was real.”

“Yes, I’m, I’m rather afraid so. The first one does tend to take people like this sometimes. Let’s try to stand up now, yes?” 

Veronica got shakily to her feet. _Still not too late for someone to jump out and this all turns out to be a prank? Maybe? Huh?_ Evidently not. Vampires were real. And somehow even that wasn’t the most mind-breaking part of the night. For whatever reason, seeing that dead man charging through the night, suit jacket flapping in the night… it had reminded her… 

_Knock, knock. Sorry to come in through the window. Dreadful etiquette, I know._

No. Not now. Not on top of everything else tonight. 

Somehow the two made their way back to the parking lot near the front gate. Veronica’s head felt light and yet she wasn’t sure how she was managing to keep it held up. 

Giles still looked somewhat embarrassed. “Um. Well. Perhaps it would be best if I drove you back-“

“I think I’ve got it.”

“Um. Yes. Well. Be careful. You’ll, ah, have to remain quiet about what happened here. If the vampires get word that they’re being hunted, then- well. Sometimes a cornered beast fights all the harder.”

“Right. Yes.”

“Um. Good, then. I… suppose I’ll contact you tomorrow.” 

Veronica couldn’t muster up any thoughts about that one way or another. 

She shambled a few steps before turning to him again. 

“They can’t come in, right? In the movies they can’t enter a house, unless you invite them.” It sounded stupid to say, but hell, if vampires were real, all bets were off, right? 

Giles nodded. “That’s true.” 

Small comforts were better than none. She still had the stake in her hand when she left. 

***  
Betty needed some explanation for why her clothes were dirty and a bit torn. At least she was tactful enough not to ask about the stake. Justifying the existence of a big wooden splintery pointy object might have gotten a bit awkward. 

Veronica flopped into bed in the dark, feeling more exhausted than she’d ever felt before. Her mind kept replaying the encounter in the graveyard, over and over. 

_Watching that guy turn to dust. Felt good, right?_ Not Heather Chandler, this time. Not Kurt or Ram. 

_No. Go away. Not you._

_Don’t say that. You know I’m always here for you. Like I said. We’re meant to be one._

When it was J.D. in her head, it was a hundred times more real. She could almost see him. Lean, pale, messy hair, leather jacket over flannels, earring, smug smile on an eerie thin face. 

_Slayer, huh? Sounds about right. I always told you, you were cut out for the “killing things” game. Hey, I’m proof of that, right?_

_I didn’t kill you. You killed yourself._

_Well, yeah. Like Japanese suicide bombers, right? Die honorably before the enemy kills you? My whole plan was to go out anyway. You left me rudderless, babe. Nothing left in the world after you._

_You needed help. I wish I could have provided it. I couldn’t. Also, you tried to kill me. Sorry-not-sorry._

_Think Big Bud ever worked out what happened to me? Probably not, right? Chandlers never figured out. Or the Sweeneys or Kellys. God, we made a great team. I pull the trigger, you help me get away with it._

Veronica felt tears burning in her closed eyes. _just go away. please_

_I understand you. Better than anyone else. That’s why we work so well together. That’s why you feel so wrong. You worked out what you’re really meant for, and then you turned your back on it. That’s why your life’s falling apart, and that’s why you feel more alive killing things in the graveyard than being normal, and that’s why, if you were being honest with yourself, you’d admit you miss me._

He wasn’t real. He couldn’t be. Veronica tried to empty her mind out, rob his voice of its presence. Somehow she still felt a small kiss on her forehead, the kind she used to give him, like it was real. 

Veronica Sawyer cried quietly in the dark until sleep took her.


	5. Chapter 5

Betty was too shy to go out, Veronica could only manage it when really necessary, and the old croquet set had long since been retired (and realistically, they didn’t have space to set it up, anyway). So on the rare, pleasant occasions when both could enjoy some free time, Veronica and Betty spent the night in. Some cheap food. Movie. Seclusion from the various horrors of daily existence. That sort of thing.

Veronica realized some time in the first act that Betty’s attention was consumed in Giles’ book. It still didn’t have a name, unless VAMPYRE counted, but she was starting to think of it as the Slayer Handbook.

“Good read?” she asked tentatively.

Betty was shocked out of her laser-focus on the page for a second. “Oh! Well, it’s weird. I feel like I’ve gone through most of the pages by now, but somehow I keep finding passages I’ve missed. You say the guy just gave it to you?”

“Yep.” Veronica tried not to sound guilty. On top of everything else, he’d also advised reading it, which she admittedly had not done. Being stuck with all the same assholes from high school was bad enough, now she couldn’t even dodge homework?

“Really weird. I mean, it’s just really old, so you’d probably think it was at least a little valuable. So you wouldn’t just want to give it away to someone you didn’t know, right?”

Veronica shrugged. “Who can fathom? Lots of crazy people out there.”

Betty seemed fixated. “Like here. I don’t remember this being on this page. Most of it’s full of advice on how to catch vampires, from way back when people still believed in them. And now here’s some stuff on doing magic, I think.” She looked embarrassed. “You know. From when people thought it was real.”

Veronica shrugged again and worried that shrugging was going to get tiresome. “Just so long as it’s not Ayn Rand.” 

Betty laughed slightly but still seemed fascinated with the pages.

There was a rather unexpected knock at the door. It was too late for visitors, and none were expected even when it was early. Veronica felt a sinking sensation in her stomach and got up quickly. Naturally, it was Giles, looking fairly uncomfortable.

“Jesus, do you follow me around?” she hissed, as quietly as she could.   
“In point of fact-“ Giles started to mutter.

“Look, I’m in the middle of something. You’ll have to go find someone else for grave watching duty.”

“Yes, you seem quite preoccupied.” Giles managed to put a sharp edge in his voice without raising it above a whisper.

Veronica looked back into the apartment. It was a mess, the TV was blaring, and there was a rather confused looking Betty on the couch with a Slayer Handbook open in her lap, wondering whether she should get up or not.

Veronica tried to smile reassuringly. She doubted it looked convincing. “Sorry. Just… some work stuff.” Brilliant. Work stuff. Someone from work, coming to pick you up at home at 9 PM. Betty looked even more confused, but nodded.

Veronica turned back to hiss at Giles. “It’s bad enough you keep bugging me at work. You can’t be here, and I definitely can’t go out to kill vampires every night-“

“Perhaps I didn’t make it plain that the fate of the world hangs in the balance-“

“FINE!” Whoops. Too loud. “Fine. Just- wait a minute.” She closed the door in Giles’ face and whirled to face Betty. “Sorry about this. They’re going to need me. For… overtime stuff.”

“This late?”

“I know. Blows, right?” Veronica tried to keep up the chatter while she dashed into her room to grab a coat and a bag. “Sorry again. I’ll be back… later. Probably- I mean, we’ll do this again some other night. Promise.”

Betty looked horrified. Veronica realized out of the corner of her eye that the sharpened end of a wooden stake was pointing out of her bag. She tried to tuck it away as discretely as possible.

Betty was still staring with the kind of stare you normally reserve for those hypothetical times when someone has sprouted a second head, but after an eternity of silence (punctuated by what had to be history’s most desperate fake smiling), she mumbled. “Okay. Stay safe.”

Veronica gave a quick half-nod and ducked back out the door. Where Giles was standing awkwardly and pretending to look around at nothing interest. He spotted her, snapped to, and marched on, clearly intending her to follow. Veronica hustled to keep up, mentally cursing herself out for it.

_And now I’m sneaking off into the night with a much older guy. We used to joke about this kind of thing happening to Jennifer Forbes. This must be more karma._

“How often do we have to do this?”

“I suspect vampire hunting might be necessary whenever there are vampires about.” Giles said curtly. Apparently he didn’t like being left on the doorstep.

“ _Are_ you still following me?”

“In the absence of a more convenient means of contacting you, I simply consulted Dr. Murray’s files. If you feel any need to reciprocate, I am in fact in the phone book. Is your friend getting much enjoyment from the priceless, centuries-old text I gave you?”

“I- she said the pages were changing around, or something. She said something about pages on doing magic.”

Giles broke his stride temporarily. “That. That is unusual. But not the issue tonight. Hurry now.”

“Look, I’ve been thinking, and I’m not sure this is going to work out. I don’t want to be the Chosen One or anything-“

“Yes, I think you’ve rather discovered why we use the term ‘chosen one’, not ‘one we asked politely.’”

***

The dead man clawed his way to the surface. On instinct, he gasped, but felt no air rushing to fill his lungs. He hauled himself up out of the gravesoil and stood upright, hunched over like a tensed beast of prey. Without drawing breath, he smelled the night air; through dead eyes, darkness was as brilliant as day. The children of the night sang to him. He heard worms in the earth and owls at their perches and a slightly built girl in blue running toward h-

Veronica’s fist made contact with the vampire’s face and he sprawled backwards. No time to let up. She was already learning these things were fast and strong when they wanted to be.

But, evidently, so was she. Blows were exchanged.

Blows were exchanged. Duck, dodge, weave. She hit the creature hard enough across the face to send him reeling backwards, and let her guard down for an instant; suddenly the thing was lunging at her like an animal. She felt herself fall backwards. Her head bumped a tombstone. There was no time left to react.

This was it. Claw-like fingernails drew back for a killing blow. And then the vampire hesitated.

“… Veronica Sawyer?”

Fight-or-flight instincts were confused into submission. 

“Um. Yes. Have we met?” she asked. 

A stuffy British voice- was there any other kind?- called out across the graveyard, sternly. “Is there a problem?”

“No!” Veronica called back, annoyed. She used the opportunity to stumble to her feet.

The thing stared off in the direction of the voice, confused for a moment. “Um. Yeah,” it said, sounding ludicrously hurt. “It’s, ah. It’s me. ‘Westerburg Feeds the World’? I was on the newspaper?”

Cartoon gears ground in Veronica’s head. The voice did sound a bit familiar. The face was hard to make out, all contorted into a demonic mockery-mask and stuff, but some features looked almost like-

A proverbial penny dropped.

“Peter?”

“Yes!” He sounded thrilled to be recognized at last.

Veronica sensed a fresh new surreal interlude. Giles had trudged up, bundled in a thick coat and scarf, lips parted and eyebrow cocked with disbelief.  
“Man, it’s been- what, a few years?”

“Something like that,” Veronica said weakly. Giles was staring at her. “Oh, this is Giles. Giles, this is Peter Lawson-”

“Dawson.”

“Right, sorry. Just… um. I have a cold. We went to school together.” The words sounded almost apologetic in her ears.

“Yeah. We had homeroom two years.”

“Two? Really?”

“And a few other classes. Paid you to do my English paper that one time? I did the lunch drive?” He let that dangle hopefully.

It was all rushing back now. Well, not rushing. There really weren’t enough memories to rush properly. Just sort of trickle. Peter had always just sort of been… there. Dopey face, sweater vest, always looking for some new extracurricular grift to pad out the old college app. A budding senator, in his own mind, at least.

All the same, not someone who really warranted a lot of interest. More like one of those little remoras that hang around bigger sharks hoping to nab scraps. The scandal of him skimming from the lunch drive fund had fueled maybe an hour’s worth of juicy gossip before more interesting fare popped up. If he’d ever worked up the courage to approach a Heather, he would probably have been eviscerated.

Definitely not the kind of guy you would expect to become a hellish bloodsucking monster.

Sensing disapproval radiating off of Giles, she heard herself ask “So what have you been up to?”

“Oh, not much. Ivy League didn’t work out but I was looking at this internship thing. Pretty sweet deal.” The horned eyebrows and mouthful of fangs were both retracting; the self-satisfied, dopey face reasserted itself.

“And doing the vampire thing.” Veronica prompted.

“Oh, yeah. Had an old friend approach me about it. You remember Dennis? Thought it might give me something to talk about at the reunion or something.”

If there was any reunion upcoming, Veronica didn’t know about it.  
“And… you’re okay with this?”

“Sure. Feels great! Stronger, better, faster. Like I’ve been imbued with dark and terrible purpose by forces beyond our comprehension. And I think my allergies are gone, too.”

Evidently his English skills were improving too. Comparatively.  
Giles coughed delicately but loud enough to be heard.

“Right,” Veronica took the hint. “Sorry about this, Peter.” The stake was in his ribs before he could react; his face looked faintly disappointed as he dissolved into dust. 

She made eye contact with Giles for a time and there was a moment of silence.

“Not _too_ close a friend of yours, I hope?”

Over his shoulder, she saw J.D. smirking. “Takes me back to our first real date,” he murmured. 

***

Training became nearly a daily thing. She and Giles met at some abandoned warehouse- which, upon reflection, was a bit of an oddity in a town as tiny as Sherwood, Ohio- and he would coach her through a few hours of exercise. Martial arts, mostly, some general endurance training. Also how to use weapons. Mostly wooden stakes, but Giles also brought along a rather impressive armory packed away in a large steamer trunk- crossbows, daggers, and even a rather impressive mace-chain-whip thing Veronica was no longer allowed to practice with after the third broken window.

The transition wasn’t easy after a few years of antidepressants, self-pity, and admittedly more vodka than was advisable. Still, as days passed, Veronica was realizing that she was stronger and faster than she’d ever imagined, if she just put her mind to it.

Giles adjusted his glasses after a rigorous session with the boxing pads. He wasn’t a small man, really, but practice sparring with Veronica seemed to leave him battered. He was obviously bracing himself to talk about something. 

“Encountering your friend like that must have been diff-“

Veronica shot him a small glare.

“-well. Traumatizing, in fact.”

“I barely knew him. But since you mention it, no, it didn’t feel great.”

The J.D. in her head piped up. “It _looked_ great.” She wasn’t sharing headspace with Heather Chandler anymore, but the memory-ghost-hallucination of Jason Dean seemed to be at her shoulder almost constantly now, gloating smile ever-present on his boyish face. Veronica could swear he seemed more vivid and real than Heather had ever been. “I mean, hey. I always thought we’d stick to me doing the killing and you forging the notes, but you make it look so easy. I’d have felt my heart pounding if the damn thing still worked.”

While that went on, Giles had been considering words. He spoke. “It may help to consider that theologians believe the mortal soul to depart at the moment of, of, vampirization, with the body thereafter being occupied by a demonic presence.”

“Is that true?”

“W-well. Obviously I would have no way of knowing, ah, as it were, firsthand.”

“Where do they come from, anyway? I feel like I’m fighting them every night now. I mean, I’ve lived here my whole life and I never bumped into one before.” Veronica was really only half-curious; in spite of everything, this new life still felt only half-real. But she was accustomed to keeping others talking, to minimize focus on herself. 

Giles slid his glasses quietly off his face and polished them a bit, something he seemed to do quite a bit.

“Before the advent of the written word and, ah, the rise of literacy, it was more difficult for people to identify the hallmarks of vampire predation, or accurately research their weaknesses. In modern times, this is less of a problem. The Watchers are no longer the only ones with the means to hunt monsters. We do our best not to step on any toes, of course.”

Veronica thought back to the freaky onlookers at the office the day Eddie died. They hadn’t been the only weirdos around town lately. On one trip to the graveyard she’d spotted two pretty-boys in hunting flannels lounging around a sleek black classic Chevy. They hadn’t seemed like vampire hunters, but then again, neither did stuffy old Rupert Giles.

“Of course, I don’t expect any, ah competition here in Sherwood. But as I was saying, these, ah, creatures tend to be somewhat fractious. Prone to infighting, very spiteful, do poorly when their authority is questioned. I’m, ah, grasping for a good analogy…”

“A race of Heather Chandlers.” Veronica said sardonically. Giles’ quizzical look told her she’d accidentally spoken aloud. “The girl whose eulogy you read, ‘Ripper.’ At Westerburg we used to call her the Demon Queen of High School.”

Giles seemed satisfied. “Yes, well. I think I know the type. A shame she never got the chance to meet my great-aunties.”

Normally being reminded about Heather kicked off a minor anxiety attack or a guilt trip. But it was such an absurd thing to say, and her mind had so much trouble processing Heather Chandler in a bitching contest with some old British women, that Veronica couldn’t help cracking a small smile, something she didn’t do very often.

Giles noticed and allowed himself a small chuckle, apparently pleased at having made an unintentional joke. Then he resumed seriousness.

“In any case. Conventional teaching among the Watchers is this: despite what some religious authorities may claim, this world did not begin as a paradise. At least, not one for us. Untold eons ago, in our world’s primordial dawn, demons walked the earth. Things from… elsewhere. Degenerate, cannibalistic gods. The term ‘Hell on Earth’ would be quite appropriate. But as strange eons passed, and the stars became unfavorable, these creatures lost purchase on this reality.”

Veronica absent-mindedly noticed that his stammer was gone. Evidently he felt more comfortable lecturing than speaking normally.

“They left behind only certain vestiges, traces of magic, certain creatures…”

“Like vampires.” Veronica finished for him.

“That’s right.”

“But you said they’re getting, I don’t know, rowdier or whatever. Any particular reason they’d come to Sherwood, Ohio? Not… I don’t know, LA? Or New Orleans?”

“That would be the Hellmouth.” 

“Oh, of course.”

Giles cleared his throat. “A place where the boundaries between worlds has gotten weak. Creatures of evil feel inexorably drawn to it, like sharks to chum. The Watchers knew of only two such locations on the north American continent; one was in Los Angeles, and the other here. Well, more accurately the epicenter is somewhere near Cleveland. But fissures radiate from that epicenter, and one happens to run under Sherwood. No doubt why he’s chosen to nest here.”

“Quick question. Are you being this cryptic by accident, or do you just love making me ask you what you’re talking about?”

Giles looked embarrassed. “I mentioned that the vampires in Sherwood were being uncharacteristically bold, and well organized to boot. This would imply some sort of- well, for want of a better word, a vampire king.”

“Or artist formerly known as.”

“I do believe you were just complaining about _my_ habits of cryptography.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“I simply meant that if they’re organized in these numbers it’s most likely because some vampire with unusual charisma or force of will is making them work together. I raised this point with the Council, but…. well, they rejected that claim.”

From his tone, Veronica guessed dealing with the Council was a headache.

“So… what happens if the Hellmouth opens?” Veronica asked, trying to convince herself she was following any of this.

Giles, in the manner prescribed by tradition, adjusted his glasses. “Well, accounts vary. If anything, it would presumably some sort of end to all civilization as we know it.”

“Oh, well then. Good news for those with student loans, at least.”

He apparently didn’t hear her. “Per one codex, such an act would result in stirrings- I think I recall something about intangible, primordial evils stalking the Earth, wearing the form of the long dead.”

“Sounds about right to me,” J.D. chimed in. “Maybe I’m biased.”

“Still.” Giles clapped his knees and rose to his feet. “Back to training.”

Veronica hadn’t realized she was sitting down during the chat. She got to her feet. Not feeling too much like resuming training just yet, and frankly liking the sound of Giles ramble, she said off the top of her head “You said there were other Slayers before me.”

Giles looked surprised. “Well, yes. One per, per generation since the dawn of recorded history, a new one springing up from among certain candidates, after the death of the previous.”

Veronica wanted to ask what happened to them, and more importantly how long they’d lasted. But she wasn’t sure she’d like the answer. Instead she asked, “Anyone famous?”

Giles slipped back into lecture mode. “Records are inconsistent. We do have records pointing to Camilla of the Volsci, Beatriz de Padilla of New Spain, ah, Virginia Dare of the Roanoke colony-“

“Am I a bad person if I’ve never heard of these people?”

“For God’s sake. Do they teach anything at all, in these, these American schools? Jeanne d’Arc?” he was almost pleading now.

Veronica got mock-defensive. “ _Her_ I know. History’s not really my subject. I had this boyfriend in eighth grade who knew this stuff, you should have tried him.”

“Love history. My second best subject.” J.D. piped up. “My favorite bit was the Dachau reprisals. Gotta pay evil unto evil. Guess what my best subject was?”  
Veronica tried to ignore him.

“Chemistry.” He made a “boom” noise and spread his hands out, miming a mushroom cloud.

***  
Days passed and Veronica began to find a new normality in hanging around graveyards and asking local priests to bless cases of bottled water. For a lot of people, learning about vampires would have been where the world fell apart, but for Veronica Sawyer… well, that had basically already happened. After all she’d been through senior year, getting on with life seemed basically impossible. Escaping from life, though, that had some appeal.

J.D. was still in her head, of course, and she could still feel her pulse picking up just from hearing that voice again. But for reasons she couldn’t quite explain, somehow he seemed to have less and less control over her life than he had in a long time.

Still, escape didn’t last forever. Every once in a while, something yanked her back into reality.

“Mac! Hi. Sorry I’m late.”

“Ronnie! Hi!”

Heather McNamara sat in their usual place at the club. Veronica winced inwardly; she was indeed nearly half an hour late, which was probably not ideal for a meeting with a formerly suicidal friend with anxious tendencies. But Mac didn’t seem anxious now, she seemed- ah. Veronica suddenly noticed the other figure at the table.

“Oh. Hello. Heather.”

“Veronica.” Heather said, noncommittally.

Heather Duke had made an attempt to take over the post of Westerburg’s Demon Queen, without terribly much success. She’d done her best keeping up the grand lunchtime poll tradition, plus the occasional annoying school petition (signed but almost summarily ignored by just about everyone). Another time-honored tradition she adhered to was the introduction of needless cruelty into almost everyone’s daily lives. 

There had been times Veronica wondered if siccing J.D. on Heather Duke hadn’t been the right decision after all, but in the end she’d elected to just ignore her. In a twisted, sad kind of way, Duke’s whole shtick seemed like a misguided way of keeping Chandler alive. Everyone coped with death differently, after all.

She was still in green, and Veronica thought she looked thinner than usual, which probably meant the purging spells were back in full force and she wasn’t seeking help. Still, it would be pointlessly cruel to point it out, and Mac looked happy. 

Mac broke from the hug Veronica hadn’t quite realized she was giving her. “Look, Heather’s here!” she chirped, unnecessarily. 

“Didn’t know you were back in town.” Veronica said, trying not to sound hostile. Once upon a time, she’d considered Heather Duke the Heather she could most easily talk to. That was before they’d realized how little they really had in common.

Heather managed one of her dazzlingly fake smiles. “Well, I got some time off. Decided to stop by and see Sherwood. I can’t believe I actually missed this place!”

“How… very.”

Veronica slid into a seat at the table.

Heather spent some time monopolizing conversation, bragging about how well school and work were going. It wasn’t exactly how Veronica had wanted the evening to go, but Mac was clearly happy about it, and in all the conversation nobody was asking her for any alibi.

Things were slightly ruined by J.D. grinning at her from across the table, poking ghostly stakes through her dinner guests’ hearts and miming sitting their wrists. Veronica hoped she didn’t look too horrified.

“So, Ronnie. How have things been with you? You look like you’ve put on a little weight.” Duke chirped out of nowhere.

_Bitch._

***

Down below Sherwood, Ohio, in the place where the Master raged…

The Master was, characteristically, raging. He had cast aside the things of humanity a long time ago. He used no human name, he refused to live upon the surface, and he had long since abandoned the use of a human face. In his worldview, humanity was to occupy a new place, the one currently occupied by livestock. Machines would be constructed, factory farms erected. Arterial canals would drain into reservoirs of blood, and his kind would cease being disparate, squabbling parasites and predominate across the world. And maybe, just maybe he wouldn’t have to deal with this kind of incompetence anymore.

“In old Rome, before the founding of the Empire,” he murmured, sure everyone present would hear, “cowardice was rewarded with the drawing of lots, with the losers being beaten to death by their comrades. The practice was eventually abolished by an official who claimed excessive cruelty would damage the troops’ morale. When he said that to me, do you know what I said?”

Nobody said anything. Gratified, the Master continued.

“Well, I said nothing to him, because I killed him. Can’t have that insubordination in the ranks.”

Various underlings had the decency to look embarrassed. Luke hung his head in shame. 

“And now not only has Amilyn risked exposing our activities here to every amateur hunter in the state, now you tell me the new Slayer is here, of all places. At least three or four of our fledgelings have been reduced to dust before they could even enjoy their first meals, and I’ve even lost some valuable people too. This might as well be Jerusalem’s Lot all over again, that business with poor young Colin. I’m not sure how you all intend for us to take this town without a bit of canon fodder in the advance guard. Really, now, if things go any further south, we won’t even need to bother bringing Hell up here.” 

He waited again. 

“Well? Is anyone able to account for this grievous little oversight?” 

Zachary spoke up. He had been one of the Master’s favorites for some time. 

“I was to escort the fledgelings. I hesitated upon seeing the girl. I failed in my duty, Master. My life is your-“ 

A spear was through his chest before he finished speaking. His body collapsed into dust. 

The Master sighed. “No, it’s simply no good. Even that hasn’t improved my mood. Some days it simply doesn’t pay to get out of the blood pool.” 

His other assembled underlings had the sufficient grace to look chastened in the flickering shadows. The Master inhaled deeply, or at least went through the correction motions. 

“The Night of St. Vigeous is nearly upon us. I had planned for us to be fully in control of this town by then. Fortunately for all of us, at least one little avenue of recruitment is still open to us. I _do_ hope nothing will disrupt that. Honestly, without dear, sweet Darla, I don’t know what I’d do.” 

*** 

Sherwood, Ohio had little in the way of nightlife. The shadowy figures in the alley behind the club would have drawn the attention of any other passerby. Some freshmen from Remington might conceivably have been at the club this late, but at this point in the school year, on a weekday, most knew not to try it. So they were, effectively, alone. 

Presently, they were joined by another figure, drawn with authority up to its full unimpressive height, hands firmly on hips. 

One, anxious and squirmy, asked “Well? How did it go?” 

“Fine,” the authoritative newcomer said curtly. 

Another one, female and a bit drawly, asked, “So when-“

“Soon.” 

“You could give us a little more information, you know.” 

“ _God,_ would you stop pulling on my dick? Darla says they’re working things out, alright? It’ll happen when it happens.”

“Right. Gotcha.” The anxious voice sounded slightly mollified. 

“Just have a little faith. A few more days, maybe a week. Then, you get to live every young American’s dream. You get to be one of the beautiful people, like in the commercials and the videos. Die young, and stay pretty. Forever.” The girl in green smiled reassuringly. “Trust me.”


	6. Chapter 6

Metalhead Matt was ready to make a break for it. More than half a week had passed. He had hoarded as much money as possible, ignoring the wigged-out looks of coworkers. He had gathered his nerve, then lost it, then gathered it again, at least three times over. The time to act was now, while it was at full ebb. Or flow. Full. Whatever.

A final request was made. Zeph had promised him one of the old clunkers breaking down in the rear lot someday. After some pleading, and after Zeph had seen real desperation in his eyes, the old man had allowed that day to be today. The clunker had probably been impressive more than a decade ago; by now it was dim and dusty and somehow made a creaking noise even when stuck in park. Apparently it was made by some foreign company called Ferat. Damned if Matt had ever heard of them, but it was either Ferat or the red Plymouth Fury, and somehow Matt didn’t like the look of that one.

His meager possessions he crammed into a duffel bag. Some crap from the Snappy Snack Shack, his Walkman. Sacrifices had to be made; more than a half of his, ahem, magazine collection would have to remain behind. As Matt hefted the bag into the back and climbed into the driver’s seat, Zeph hovered at his side.

“Sorry to see you go, kid. Now I have to find someone else stupid enough to work for my pay.”

Matt wasn’t in the mood to even acknowledge the joke. Something occurred to him. “Zeph, have you seen Clyde around?” 

“Your friend?”

“Yeah.”

“Dumbass with the hippie haircut? Always yakking about lions?”

“He… yeah.”

“Not for awhile. Why? You want me to give him a message?”

“No. Zeph, if you see him, steer clear of him. And… try not to go out after dark, and… you should think about leaving town too.”

Zeph was well and truly confused now. “Mattie, is something wrong?”

“No. I’m sorry, I just… keep yourself safe.”

Matt slammed the door, plucked the key out from under the visor. He had meant to ride out into the sunrise. Daylight was already burning.

***

Somehow it was already dark by the time Matt was on the outskirts of town. It didn’t seem possible. Sherwood was tiny. Someone in charge of human fate clearly had it out for him. Things only got worse when he spotted the body lying on the road. The clunker squealed as he forced it to a halt. The bundle was unmistakable. There was someone lying in the middle of the road, back to him. Alive, dead, some bum taking a nap, impossible to say. No way forward without driving over them. Or getting out of the car.

“I’m not getting out of the car,” he muttered to himself. “Nope. Sure as hell not getting out of the car, can’t make me, not getting out of _God dammit._ ” 

Matt popped the driver-side door, and let the Clunker ease forward in a jerky snail-pace. His head leaned out the door and his left foot hopped along the road as the car inched onward. “Hey. Hi, there,” he called out through the window. “Are you… alright?”

The car was as close to the bundled form as it could safely get. Nothing for it now. Get out and help, or play it safe and run them right over. A week ago Matt would never have believed how tempting the latter option could possibly seem. Tensing up, he slid the car into park, and slid out. He left the keys in the ignition, planning on a quick getaway.

“Hey.” He moved to the prostrate form, an inch at a time, tensed to flee if necessary. “Buddy? You alright?”

He was about halfway between the bundle and the car door when he finally asked himself what the hell he was doing. With reflexes he didn’t know he had, using muscles that had not seen any significant exertion since the heady days of gym class, Matt turned and fairly dove back into the safety of the Clunker. The bundle in the road had reared up, sloughing off the black swaddling.

Matt floored it. The driver’s door was still open. He was sitting on one leg. He was not seat-belted and his hands were only on the wheel in a technical sense. Tires squealed and something groaned as he shifted the gears. As the Clunker rammed the shrouded figure, there was a sound that made all the skin on his back convulse.

The shroud fell away. It wasn’t Girly Name- Amy Whatever- and it wasn’t Clyde. But it was obviously one of the creatures, and it was now smeared against the Clunker’s windshield like a bug.

_Oh, thank God. Not a person after all. But now I’m probably going to die anyway, so, well, maybe not. Still, at least I don’t have to explain that TO God._

The Clunker was out of control, Matt’s sight now obscured by a ticked-off monster with a Halloween-mask face and college preppy clothes. He reflected that this would not have made his top ten ways to die. There was thudding on the car roof. Great. Double-Ugly had wingmen. Of course.

His arm shot out and he tried to shut the door. Instead something tore the door away, clean off its hinges. Taloned fingers curled around the frame, digging into the car roof. Another monster-face, upside down, popped out at him and grinned. With the other hand, the thing made a hitchhiker thumb. “Going my way?” it rasped. 

Well. One last thing to try. Matt spun the wheel as far as it would go in one direction, gas pedal still smashed to the floor. His heart was caught in his throat, but mentally he offered up praises to all his gods. James Hetfield. Dave Mustaine. Help me, Tom Araya. You’re my only hope. He felt the car thump as it left the road. For a second he was worried it would come to a dead crawl off-road, but it kept going. Right up until it slammed full on into the tree.

The vamp who had been struggling to unpeel himself from the windshield stiffened as the end of a ramp poked through his chest. Before Matt’s eyes, the body, clothes and all, decayed into dust, the soulless, surprise-filled eyes staying slightly afterwards.

Matt slid out of the seat and onto his knees in the grass. He was pretty sure he’d hit his head on the wheel or something; he felt slightly warm, wet, and sticky stuff on his forehead. _Friggin’ airbag. Friggin’ foreign car._ It didn’t seem too bad, though. And the other… vampires from the car’s roof seemed to have bugged out. So despite all logical sense, he was still alive after that. He contemplated throwing up to celebrate.

Matt had just enough time to get shakily to his feet when he heard a hissing, wailing sound. There were two more demon-preppies, and, standing between them, still in his cheesy long hair and Lost Boys shirt, was Girly-Name. With a start, Matt realized he was missing an arm.

“Give me a break.” Matt breathed.

The vampires stalked nearer, like lions sizing up prey. Matt reached for his Walkman- his talisman, his Crucifix- and came away with a fistful of tape. The thing must have been crushed in the car crash. Welp. End of the road.

“Well, kid. You ran us a merry chase,” Amilyn said mockingly. “Put up a hell of a fight. Take some comfort in that.”

His voice didn’t have the hypnotic quality anymore, Matt noticed absently. Now it just sounded grating. Like listening to Air Supply. It occurred to Matt that as long as he was dying, he’d prefer not to come back as one of _them_. Suicide, that was an honorable way out, right? Too bad he hadn’t thought of that earlier.

Amilyn’s face distorted, his two henchies waiting anxiously for him to take the first bite.

And then something blue pummeled Amilyn in the side of the head. With a start, Matt realized it was a girl. With a sensation similar he imagined was similar to an aneurysm, he realized it was Veronica Sawyer. This had been a very unusual night.

Amilyn reeled back. His friends looked stunned. Sawyer hurriedly pulled out a walkie-talkie and snapped into it, rapid-fire: “Got him. Over by the east side. Playground. Hurry.”

She turned and noticed Matt. “Hi. That your car?”

Matt turned to look at the mangled remains of the Clunker. “Uh. Yeah.”

Then vampires lunged, and there was a flurry of blows. Matt, left on the sidelines, thought he saw a sharpened wooden spike slide impossibly out of Veronica’s sleeve.

Another figure bustled past him on his right, in a distinctly non-vampiric way.

“Beg pardon,” it said, inclining its head slightly. It was Horn Rim. He bustled on.

Well. At least Matt hadn’t pissed himself this time.

***  
Taking on three at once. _So, my current record, plus one,_ Veronica thought. She was immediately grateful Kurt and Ram hadn’t heard that.

One of the vamps lunged forward and got a stake in the heart for his trouble. Her reflexes sometimes seemed faster than her conscious mind could process. _One bites the dust. This is going to be easy._ She took advantage of the break to size up the other two.  
One of them was down an arm and thought the long blond hair and goatee look suited him (it did not). And of course he had a black jacket on, because every evil or otherwise annoying guy in her life needed one.

(“You told me you liked the jacket,” J.D. whispered in her head, indignant.)

The other vamp was more familiar.

“Hi, Eddie.”

“It’s Veronica, right? How’ve you been?”

“Fine. Sorry this happened to you.”

“Hey, I’m not! It’s a small, ugly world out there. Everyone else lives and dies and that’s the end of it. Now I get to be more than most people.”

Just like with Peter Dawson, it seemed vampirization hadn’t affected his personality much. Of course dying and being reborn a bloodsucking demon wouldn’t get rid of his Pollyannaness.

One-Arm made an annoyed noise. “Don’t just stand there. Kill her! A lot!” 

Eddie was slightly more capable than his other friend. He came at her in a blind charge; reacting without thinking, she ducked out of the way like a matador. He maneuvered and came at her from the other direction. This dodge, she managed to get ahold the hem of his monkey jacket. Drawing on her newfound strength, she managed to nearly lift him off the ground and toss him a few feet onto his face.

 _Not exactly what they teach you in self-defense class._ Eddie was getting frustrated, stalactite-fangs bared and horned brows getting more pronounced. His next charge was even wilder, arms stretched out to try and trap her. Unfortunately, this left his chest exposed. He had a little time to look appropriately bummed before he was dusted.

His two underlings dispatched effortlessly, One-Arm was left alone. He made a strange gesture with his remaining arm, before looking furious with himself. Veronica realized with a start that he’s fallen back instinctually on the old Slow Mocking Clap Maneuver, and stifled a laugh.

“So. The whispers were true. Brave new world, brand new Slayer. That’s rather handy, actually. I wonder. No records of a Slayer getting turned. I bring back the first, that’s egg on the Master’s face. _Come to me._ ”

Veronica’s first instinct was to snort, but for some reason her throat didn’t want to. Her ears heard him affecting a corny Bela Lugosi style accent, but for some reason her brain heard something else. Something… enticing. Without waiting for the appropriate thought, she took a couple newborn-deer steps in One-Arm’s direction.

“ _That’s it. Trust me, what we’ve got planned here, you’re better off just throwing in the towel now. So, come to think of it… you’re welcome._ ” 

Suddenly another voice cut through the night air.

“Ahm, yes. Beg pardon. _One hundred through one hundred and ten, philosophy. One hundred and ten through one hundred and twenty, metaphysics. Hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty, epistemology._ ”

Giles was suddenly behind One-Arm, packing a crucifix and reciting the Dewey Decimal system with religious reverence. One-Arm’s concentration shifted and he flinched like a man suddenly blinded by high-beams, snarling futilely. The fuzz in Veronica’s head evaporated. She was moving without control again, but it was instinct driving her, not that voice.

One-Arm worked up enough nerve to bat the cross from Giles’ hand, hissing as his flesh withered and steamed. Veronica brought the stake down, but it didn’t manage to reach the heart; his remaining good arm came up in defense, and she cut a nasty gash through it.

“FUCK!”

One-Arm turned and ran, scared but still fast. Giles stepped up, pulling a throwing knife from his sleeve, considered making a throw, then tched under his breath as he thought better of it.

“Gimme.” Veronica plucked the knife from his head and threw it without thinking. She couldn’t quite make it out in the dark, but she heard a yelp and saw One-Arm’s retreating form stumble. Probably hit him in the back of the calf. Oof, tough luck. Be out of limbs soon. Unfortunately, it didn’t slow him down for long; as she watched, he regained balance and flitted into the night.

Veronica looked at Giles.

“So? Nice throw, right?”

The librarian did not seem pleased. “Don’t gush. It’s embarrassing.”

“What were you thinking?”

“Hey, you didn’t look like you were making the shot-“

“Charging all three of them like that was completely reckless!”

Veronica was slightly put out. “What was I supposed to do? Let them gang-fang the guy?” 

“Not only were there three of them, but if I’m not mistaken, that one was significantly older. More powerful. If he hadn’t decided to play with you, he could have overpowered you at any moment-“

“But he didn’t! God, what is your _damage_?” She hated hearing the words leave her mouth. They made her sound like a kid. But they were out. “Sorry, I guess I figured I’d take the lead, since you saddled me with this Chosen One shit.”

Giles’ brows sharpened. “A new Slayer is chosen only when her predecessor dies. Do you know how many there have been in my lifetime alone?”

“I-“

“Five. And most lasted longer than you have, were trained better, and were better prepared. Five girls, each thinking they had the situation under control. Girl your age or younger, girls with homes and families, vapid blond cheerleaders like your friend for all I know! Not just killed, but ripped apart, because they got it into their heads that they were indestructible! Have I driven home the seriousness of this situation yet?”

Veronica faltered a bit.

“Five?”

“Five.”

“And you… you talk about it like you saw it.”

Giles was quiet for a moment. 

“I was familiar with the Watcher assigned to the previous Slayer. Christopher Botwell. We called him Kit. He died as well.”

“Right. Well.”

“This job is necessary, but you can’t lose sight of the fact that it’s unconscionably dangerous.”

Veronica breathed deep.

“Look. I’m not like-“

“Um. Hi.”

Giles and Veronica turned as one. A very battered-looking, sheepish-looking Metalhead Matt was waving his hand, trying to get their attention.

“Sorry,” he cut in, “but I- I mean, I’ve kind of lost my ride. And my Walkman. And I think one of my Martens.“ he lifted his right foot, which was clad in a muddy sock.

“Any chance I could get a ride out of town?”

Giles sighed deeply.

***

There wasn’t time to get him to another town, news he took surprisingly well, probably because between emotional exhaustion and the beginning of a slight psychological breakdown he didn’t have the energy to argue. Ultimately it was agreed he could be put up at the warehouse, and Giles could keep an eye on him. For now, he sat in the backseat of Giles’ Citroën, babbling to himself quietly and cradling the remains of a Walkman to his chest.

Veronica fidgeted. “I guess I should make introductions.”

“We’ve met.” Giles said curtly. “Under similar circumstances to tonight.”

Matt nodded hurriedly, looking slightly dizzy from the effort.

“Right.” Veronica changed the subject. “In the park back there. You stopped Meat Loaf in his tracks with that cross.”

“Yes. They’re repelled by objects and incantations of faith, provided it’s pure faith. Another thing that was in the tome.”

“I don’t get quite as much time to read for fun when I spend every night in a graveyard.”

“I once scared one off by singing Pearl Jam,” Matt said, still sounding dazed.

Veronica and Giles took a moment to process that, Giles in the driver seat trying to resist the urge to turn and stare.

“Well… yes, I, ah. I suppose that might work. Sincere faith takes many forms.”

Veronica tried not to roll her eyes. “Well, I’ll keep to stakes and leave that to you guys.”

The J.D. in her head whispered in her ear again. “Could try some verses from your diary. I recall a few passages about killing evil bitches that I found particularly inspiring.”

Matt spoke with a smidge of renewed confidence. “So… you guys hunt these things, then?”

“Giles does. I didn’t used to, but I’m the Chosen One or some shit, apparently.”

Giles looked pained. Matt nodded uncertainly.

Veronica actually realized she was a little sorry for the guy. He’d always been a bit of a creep, but more of a harmless ‘desperate for someone’s attention’ kind of creep. And finding out about vampires was probably pretty world-shattering for most normals.

“So. Matt. Weird to see you alone. Skipping town without Clyde?”

Matt went quiet and didn’t make eye contact. Veronica was confused for a split second until she got it. _Ah. Oops._ She felt her face involuntarily wince.

The J.D. in her head sounded amused. “Open mouth, insert foot. That’s a bit familiar. Speaking of which, let’s stop for slushies. Eh? Eh?”

There was relative quiet in the car until a few blocks outside the warehouse, where they started hearing sirens. Giles tensed up then, and slowed the car. One block away, it became obvious where the sirens were coming from. The warehouse had been set ablaze. All that was left was a still smoldering pile; emergency personnel were milling around, dying-down excitement in the air.

“Ah,” said Giles, succinctly.

“What… do you think-?” Veronica couldn’t quite get the words out, but she could tell he was thinking it too. Vampires smart enough to burn down buildings? Smart enough to track them? The thought made the bottom drop out of her stomach. 

“Well. If your quarry runs to ground, leave no ground to go to,” Giles murmured. “I still had some personal effects in there.”

Matt was quiet. If Veronica and Giles were spooked, he was probably terrified out of his wits.

Giles shifted the little car into reverse. “Change of plans, then. If it’s not too much trouble, I hope you won’t mind putting two of us up for the night.”

“And if it IS too much trouble?”

“Then all the same.”

“Well. I’ll have a lot to explain to Betty.”

***

Betty Finn couldn’t help but be entranced by the book Veronica had gotten from that stranger. Something about it just… spoke to her. Not literally. Well, a little literally. Right now she was up far past her bedtime, puzzling through a few pages about some pagan thing called Manon. She wasn’t entirely sure what Manon was, but it was compelling.

She was alone again tonight. But Betty wasn’t a stranger to being left out while Veronica did something fun. She wasn’t and never had been as socially capable as her friend. Veronica had been able to insinuate herself effortlessly into any clique back in high school. Betty had had difficulty talking to her own friends. For the most part, Betty had come to terms with this, but it was sometimes hard not to be jealous of Veronica. There should have been some kind of rule against being the prettier friend, the smarter friend, _and_ the less shy friend all in one. Surely two of the above should have been enough.

Still, she couldn’t bear any ill will to her oldest friend. It was her own problem to deal with. But the book made her feel a bit more special, somehow. She would never admit it out loud, but sometimes she was tempted to actually attempt one of the spells on the yellowing pages. But no. That would be-

Betty heard the door. Veronica, looking bedraggled and disheveled, walked in, followed by a weary-looking older man and a slightly loopy-looking Metalhead Matt.

“Betty. Hi. I’m sorry about this, but these guys need a place to stay. And we have some things to talk about.”  
***

Veronica took the reins at first, but let Giles take over so he could do his spiel on the forces of darkness and so on. Since she’d heard that bit before, she quietly excused herself for a bit to wash off some dirt and get changed into non-torn clothes. She took a moment and looked at herself in the bathroom mirror.

This was it. Her secret wasn’t hers anymore. On some level, that was a relief, but it was also scary. Maybe because she had other secrets she would prefer not getting out.

“Confession’s good for the soul.” J.D. said sagely, the image of him creeping into view in the mirror. She ignored him again.

“Come on now. Can’t we be civil about this? Talk to me. I _know_ you’ve been missing me. What did you even do without me all this time? Spend all your time at work, running errands for a new band of Heathers? Don’t get me wrong, I like it reminds me of the chick in _Taxi Driver_. Loved that flick. Used to practice the mirror bit. ‘You talkin’ to me?’”

“Shut up, J.D.” The whisper escaped her lips involuntarily.

She could see the smirk widen on his deceptively cherubic face. He’d gotten through to her. His eyes still seemed a bit sad, though.

“I wanted us to be together. I never met anyone else I felt understood me, not like you. Right from that night you snuck into my room, I couldn’t think of anyone or anything else. It was supposed to be you and me.”

Veronica had to steady herself on the sink counter. Her arms were shaking.

“I could have gotten used to hunting vampires, too. That’d’ve been badass.”

She couldn’t take it anymore. She got out of the bathroom.

J.D. called after her. “Went down into hell with me. Ask me, I think you came back wrong.”

***  
Betty’s head was reeling a bit.

“So…you hunt vampires.”

“Ahm. Yes.” Giles murmured. “Vampires a specialty, extradimensional incursions, shapechangers, spectral manifestations, succubi, perversions of science and assorted hellspawn as necessary.”

If that was dry humor, Betty had missed the cue.

It sounded insane. The sudden appearance of a book labeled VAMPYR was doing little to lend credence to the idea. If anything, it felt to Betty like more evidence of some prankster’s idea of a joke. But nobody, not even Matt- who, shivering and ashfaced, no longer seemed quite as scary as he had in school- would go to that length for a joke. And Veronica wouldn’t pull any joke like that on her. And if it wasn’t a joke, then insane as it sounded, Sherlockian logic demanded the only remaining possibility was that… it was true. 

Betty looked to her roommate, who looked embarrassed. “ _You_ hunt vampires?”

Veronica shrugged. “I only just started like a week ago. I’m the Slayer.”

Matt looked interested.

“Not that kind of Slayer.”

Matt looked disappointed.

Betty struggled with that. “The Slayer… what is that, exactly?”

“I don’t really get it either.”

Giles pitched in. “Chosen by mystic forces, the imprint of a spiritual entity via a ritual undertaken by African sha-“

“Yeah, that.” Veronica cut him off, rolling her eyes. Giles, not happy to be interrupted, made a noise that was almost a harumph.

“And… the vampires are hunting _you_ now?”

“’fraid so. Burned down our warehouse and a lot of Giles’ armory.”

“And we’re not worried about them burning the place down here.”  
“Not particularly,” Giles jumped in.

“Because there are a lot more houses around, and they won’t want to risk being see by authorities, which is why most of the recent attacks haven’t been near places like this.” Veronica cut him off.

“Y-yes. That’s right.” Giles sounded impressed.

Betty forged onward, lowering her voice. “And… him?” she gestured at Matt, who looked puzzled.

“We just sort of picked him up.”

“Those things got Clyde.” Matt said suddenly. His voice sounded hollow, but jittery, like someone both wired with adrenaline but with no place to let it flow. “And I’ve been holed up in a garage for more than a week, living on shower water. Couldn’t stay there anymore. Had to leave. I could hear them whispering outside my window, every night.”

The mood, already not exactly sunny, took a dark turn. Matt looked pathetic. Once upon a time he’d been roughly the class clown. Without his partner in crime, and the bottom dropped out of his world, he looked like cold reality had run into him head-on.

Out of the corner of her eye, Betty noticed Veronica was shaking her head, looking annoying like she was debating something with herself. It was odd, but not among the oddest things tonight.

“So. Um. Will you be staying overnight?”

***

Matt conked out on the couch mid-conversation. Still in his jacket, jeans, and boots, snoring slightly. It wasn’t the prettiest sight, but it was hard to fault the guy after everything he’d been through. Giles had grabbed a spare blanket and pillow from somewhere and was setting himself up some modest sleeping accommodations on the floor.

Veronica, meanwhile, tried to talk to Betty while looking her and not looking her in the eye at the same time.

“I… guess this explains where you’ve been off to every night lately.”

“Guess so.”  
“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Veronica took a deep breath.

“I guess… I didn’t know how to talk about it. It still sounds nuts. I never really stopped thinking I might be cracking up.” 

“I guess that-“

“And… I was being a little selfish. My life was a mess for so long… and Slaying, I just felt like… all that could be behind me. I didn’t want to share it.”

Betty was quiet for a moment. “I was jealous of you for a long time, you know.”

That was unexpected. 

“I know. It’s pathetic. You’re my best friend, but everything just came so easy to you. You could be with any crowd you wanted. I guess I always wanted to be more like you.” 

Veronica fumbled for words. “Trust me. You don’t.” 

“I just meant… even when you think your life’s a mess, I always looked up to you, a little. No, what I mean is… well. I wish you thought you could be more open with me.” 

Betty grabbed her in a quick, tight little hug, looked embarrassed. Then she turned and headed for her room. 

Veronica had no idea what to make of that, but was too tired to dwell on it for too long. At least her friend was taking the whole “vampire” revelation well. 

Giles had wandered over, pretending to clean his glasses again. 

“Sure you’re alright on the floor?” 

“Yes, I believe I can, ah, make do. I could do without Matthew’s snoring, but such is life. In any case, I felt I should apologize for being so snappish earlier.” 

“What? Oh, right. No big thing. You were right. I had no idea what his whole hypnosis act would be like.” 

“There’s very little preparation against it.” Giles said, looking a bit mollified. 

“It’s weird,” Veronica said, only half-realizing she was saying it. “First Peter, then Eddie. Now Clyde, apparently. All the henchies are, like, college students. Or the right age for it. I mean, I know it’s a small town, but what are the odds I’d know so many of them?” 

Giles looked like it had only just occurred to him as well. “Yes. I… that is odd. Still, no sense in fretting over it. We all need some sleep.” 

*** 

Amilyn’s intelligence had been a bit valuable. They know for certain the new Slayer was in Sherwood now, that she was inexperienced, that her Watcher had no reinforcements, and now they even had a good description of her. Still, Amilyn had broken the terms of his exile, and there was nothing for it but punishment. With heavy heart- okay, not that heavy- Luke had removed Amilyn’s other arm. 

And now, in the Crawford Street manor the Master had granted him as his lair, Luke was left to ponder other various reports. The Watcher’s hiding place had been burned down, and the authorities had seen nothing; excellent. Recruitment rates were still down; disappointing. They were needed, and for more than fodder. The ritual that would free the Master from his imprisonment required blood to flow. Luke’s duty was to make that happen. He was to be the Vessel. 

Enter his current guest. 

“I know what you are,” said the thin girl in green, simply. She was clearly terrified but doing her best to hide it. Luke felt something like approval. 

“And yet you seek us out,” Luke rumbled. “Such audacity seems symptomatic of a death wish. Luckily for you it’s also interesting.” 

There was quiet. The girl in green looked at him stubbornly, defiantly. 

“I have something to offer you,” she said at last. 

“Oh?” 

“You want more bloodbags. I can provide them. In return, I want to be like you. Turned.”

Luke considered. “That could be arranged.”


End file.
